Ferdinand Bol

W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 1, New York 1979, pp. 474-5, no. 225^x (as Ferdinand Bol, substantiated drawing);

M. Royalton-Kisch, online revision of Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (1954/1973) (https://rembrandtcatalogue.net), under ‘Drawings not in Benesch’ (as Rembrandt?; 1638-39?)

Although this spirited and varied sheet of figure (and frog) studies was sold in 1977 as a Rembrandt, the catalogue entry from that sale notes that Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann had suggested an alternative attribution to Ferdinand Bol. Even half a century ago, it seems, there was much discussion regarding where exactly to draw the line between the drawings of Rembrandt himself and those of his most talented students such as Bol, a debate that continues to this day.¹

Drawn in the distinctive combination of pen and iron-gall ink on paper prepared with a light brown wash, favored by Rembrandt during a short period around 1638-9 but rarely used by any of his pupils, the sheet presents on its two sides six very different studies. On the recto, we see: a fairly detailed head study of a man in an exotic plumed hat; a more rapidly drawn profile head study of a man in a simpler, tall hat; a much more lightly drawn profile study of an exotic warrior brandishing sword and shield; and, lower right, a brilliantly incongruous study of a frog, crouched and ready to jump.

On the verso are two less elaborated studies: top left is the head of a man in a helmet, powerfully rendered in a mere half dozen broad pen strokes, and top right is a more finely drawn study of a man in a tall hat defending himself – one might think against the attacking warrior on the recto, were both figures not facing in the same direction.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this drawing is the sheer variety of pen strokes, touch and imagination that the various studies encompass. In the profile head study on the recto, for example, the rhythmic, repeated hatching that we see throughout the lower figure in the hat is combined with bold, broad strokes, more like those with which the head study on the verso is constructed. The two battling figures are, however, drawn with finer, more cursive lines, and in a different ink (not the iron-gall ink used in the other four studies). 

When Professor Werner Sumowski published the drawing in 1979 for the first (and until very recently still the only) time, he followed Haverkamp-Begemann in attributing it to Ferdinand Bol, rather than Rembrandt. The drawing that Sumowski cited for comparison was, however, a study of a Young Man with Plumed Hat and Sword, which has since been considered by scholars to be closer to the style of Govaert Flinck, and perhaps even Rembrandt himself.² Among the other drawings that Sumowski gave to Bol, there are certain parallels with the Nathan exhorting David³, in which the repeated, insistent penwork to some extent mirrors the handling in the central figure in the hat on the present sheet, but there is no known drawing by Bol, or indeed by any other Rembrandt pupil of this period, in which we see anything approaching the same variety of handling and richness of imagination – and dare one say humor – that we see here. For that, one needs to look to Rembrandt, and the remarkable study sheets that he produced during the late 1630s, such as the sheet of four head studies in the Abrams collection or the similar work in the Barber Institute, Birmingham.⁴ 

Martin Royalton-Kisch, having examined the drawing in the original in December 2022, has reached much the same conclusion, and has added it to his online revision of Otto Benesch’s 1954/1973 catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s drawings, as ‘Rembrandt?; 1638-39?’ (see Literature).  In his extensive analysis of the drawing, Royalton-Kisch writes: ‘There is no doubt that Rembrandt’s own drawings resemble the sketches on this curious and varied sheet more closely than anything securely attributable to any of his pupils.’

Although some modern scholars support Haverkamp-Begemann and Sumowski in assigning this accomplished drawing to Ferdinand Bol, the variety of pose and expression, the economy and purpose of line in the less worked up figures, and the sheer humor in the juxtaposition of exotic warrior and humble frog are all features for which the closest parallels can be found in drawings by Rembrandt himself rather than Bol, and the historic attribution to the master should not be lightly dismissed.  

1. For the best account of the discussion, see Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils. Telling the Difference, exh. cat., Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009-10  

2. Private collection. Sumowski, op. cit., no. 224^x

3. Formerly Frans Koenigs collection, sold, New York, Sotheby's, 23 January 2001, lot 21; Sumowski, op. cit., no. 156^x

4. O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, London 1954/1973, nos. 339, 340.