JACOB LOIS | Portrait of a woman, half-length, holding a book 

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 20 December 1906, lot 82;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 1917, lot 93;

Private collection, Italy;

From whom acquired by A.E. 'Chick' Austin, Director of Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut, circa 1930;

Private collection, United States;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 12 January 1995, lot 26, where acquired.

The Connoisseur, vol. 39, no. 156, August 1914, p. 261, reproduced;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 2, Genre, Münster/Hamburg/London 1996, pp. 160-63, cat. no. 38, reproduced in colour;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M.J. Bok et al, At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 96, cat. no. 91, reproduced in colour.

Jacob Lois spent his entire life in Rotterdam, where he is recorded not only as a painter and an architect, but also as a notable collector of paintings. His relatively small body of work is comprised mainly of portraits and religious subjects. A comparable pair of strongly-lit and half-length portraits by Lois, dated 1645, can be found today in Rotterdam in the Het Schielandshuis.¹ 

1 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/202290 and https://rkd.nl/explore/images/202287