Ferdinand Bol

Ferdinand Bol (24 June 1616 - 24 August 1680) was a Dutch painter, etcher and draftsman. Although his surviving work is rare, it displays Rembrandt's influence; like his master, Bol favored historical subjects, portraits, numerous self-portraits, and single figures in exotic finery.^[1]

Ferdinand Bol
Self-portrait (c. 1669) by Ferdinand Bol
Born	(1616-06-24)24 June 1616 Dordrecht, Netherlands
Died	24 August 1680(1680-08-24) (aged 64) Herengracht, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Known for	Painting, ethching, draftsman
Notable work	Portrait of Elisabeth Bas
Spouse(s)	Elisabeth Dell (m. 1953; died1660) Anna van Erckel (m. 1669; died 1680)
Signature

Biography

Ferdinand was born in Dordrecht as the son of a surgeon, Balthasar Bol.^[2] Ferdinand Bol was first an apprentice of Jacob Cuyp in his hometown and/or of Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht. After 1630, he studied with Rembrandt, living in his house in Sint Antoniesbreestraat, then a fashionable street and area for painters, jewellers, architects, and many Flemish and Jewish immigrants.^[3] In 1641, Bol started his own studio.

In 1652, he became a burgher of Amsterdam, and in 1653, he married Elisabeth Dell, whose father held positions with the Admiralty of Amsterdam and the wine merchants' guild, both institutions that later gave commissions to the artist. Within a few years (1655), he became the head of the guild and received orders to deliver two chimney pieces for rooms in the new town hall designed by Jacob van Campen, and four more for the Admiralty of Amsterdam.

Around this time, Bol was a popular and successful painter. His palette had lightened, his figures possessed greater elegance, and by the middle of the decade he was receiving more official commissions than any other artist in Amsterdam.^[4] Godfrey Kneller was his pupil.^[5] Bol delivered four paintings for the two mansions of the brothers Trip, originally also from Dordrecht.^[6]

Bol's first wife died in 1660. In 1669, Bol married for the second time to Anna van Erckel, widow of the treasurer of the Admiralty, and apparently retired from painting at that point in his life.^[7] In 1672, the couple moved to Keizersgracht 672, then a newly designed part of the city, and now the Museum Van Loon. Bol served as a governor in a Home for Lepers. Bol died a few weeks after his wife, on Herengracht, where his son, a lawyer, lived.

Probably his best known painting is a portrait of Elisabeth Bas, the wife of the naval officer Joachim Swartenhondt and an innkeeper near the Dam square. This and many other of his paintings would in the 19th century be falsely attributed to his master Rembrandt.

Gallery (selected works)

• 
  Portrait of Elisabeth Bas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• 
  Pyrrhus shows his elephant to Fabritius, Royal Palace of Amsterdam
• 
  Man in golden helmet (Mars), National Museum, Warsaw
• 
  Portrait of a Man, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• 
  A Lady with a Fan, National Gallery, London
• 
  An Astronomer, National Gallery, London
• 
  Governors of the Wine Merchant's Guild, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Notes

1. Ferdinand Bol biography, Getty Museum Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
2. Twenty years later visiting Ferdinand, Balthasar was painted by Rembrandt.
3. Immediate neighbors included Hendrick van Uylenburg, who rented from Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy, and Govert Flinck. Pieter Lastman and David Vinckboons lived across the bridge.
4. Biography, Getty Museum
5. Blankert, A. (1976) Ferdinand Bol.
6. Schwartz, G. (1984) Rembrandt, zijn leven, zijn schilderijen, (= his life, his paintings) p. 206.
7. Crenshaw, P. (2006) Rembrandt's Bankruptcy. The artist, his patrons and the art market in seventeenth-century Netherlands, p. 40.

External links

• Ferdinand Bol page at the Rijksmuseum's web site with the famous portrait of Elisabeth Bas.
• Works and literature at PubHist
• Portrait of a gentlemen
• Two paintings by Bol for the townhall, click "verder" to see the second one
• Ferdinand Bol. Paintings