The Monogrammist IS Active 1633 - 1658

Private Collection;
Their sale, Amsterdam, Frederick Muller & Cie., December 12, 1912, lot 247 (as Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot, Portrait d'un Kourde);
Anton W.M. Mensing (1866-1936), Amsterdam;
His deceased sale, Amsterdam, Frederick Muller & Cie., November 15, 1938, lot 83 (as Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot, Portrait d'un Kourde), where purchased by J. Paul Getty for 525 florins;
J. Paul Getty Collection, Sutton Place, Surrey, by whom donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum, California, in 1970, no. 70.PB.13.

BB. Fredericksen, Handbook of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu 1965, reproduced plate 11 (as Attributed to the Monogrammist IS);
B.B. Fredericksen, Catalogue of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu 1972, pp. 80-81, no. 102 (as Attributed to the Monogrammist IS).;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. IV, Landau/ Pfalz 1983, pp. 2549 and p. 2550, note 15, reproduced p. 2553 (as the Monogrammist IS and suggested that it is a self-portrait);
D. McTavish, Pictures from the Age of Rembrandt. Selections from the Personal Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Bader, exhibition catalogue, Kingston, Ontario 1984, p. 32 (as the Monogrammist IS);
D. Jaffé, Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, p. 88, reproduced (as Attributed to the Monogrammist IS).

 

Formerly attributed to Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot (1585-1657), the attribution to the Monogrammist IS was first proposed in 1965 by B.J.A  Renckens of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague and by Burton B. Fredericksen during the research stage of the latter's 1965 Handbook of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum (see Literature). Renckens, furthermore, also suggested this may be a self portrait. The attribution is now widely accepted and the painting is published by Werner Sumowski as by this enigmatic master (see Literature). The artist's oeuvre consists mostly of bust or half length figures and interiors with small figures and still life elements. For further discussion on the artist see Von Frimmel, 'Von Monogrammist IS', in Blättern für Gemäldekunde, I, 1904, pp. 132-33, or Sumowski, under Literature, pp. 2548-2560.