Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat

ca. 1646–48

Ferdinand Bol(Dordrecht 1616 – 1680 Amsterdam)oil on canvas
100 x 79.5 cm
FB-105Currently on view at: Long Museum, Shanghai© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat
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How To Cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. "Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat
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Although traditionally considered to be among the last in Ferdinand Bol’s

Comparative Figures

series of character studies, or tronies, executed in the 1640s and 1650s,
this three-quarter-length, exotically dressed male figure bespeaks a formal
portrait.[1] Wearing a fur-trimmed hat and a brown jacket accented by amustard colored collar and sparkling golden highlights, the man raises hisright hand toward the beholder in a rhetorical gesture. In the other hegrasps a fur pelt, which nearly spills into the viewer’s space. Speckled
black spots, which are softly rendered across the light brown pelt, fall into
folds of light and shadow. A deep red cloak—a reoccurring element in
Bol’s tronies and self-portraits—hangs down over his left shoulder so that
only his thumb is visible beneath it.[2] The sitter’s frontal, engaged poseand expectant expression distinguish this composition among Bol’s
portraits.[3]The

figure’scostumecombines

historicizingandFig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts, 1631,
oil on panel, 116.8 x 87.3 cm, The
Frick Collection, New York,1943.1.150, © The Frick
Collection

contemporary

elements.[4] The golden brown jacket and the white shirt beneath it areboth diagonally fastened around the man’s torso, which, as Marieke deWinkel has noted, was a style associated with sixteenth-century orientalclothing.[5] Fur hats, although a common feature of men’s wardrobes in theseventeenth century, were rarely depicted in portraiture.[6] Bol may havebeen inspired by Rembrandt’s 1631 Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts (fig 1),
which represents the wealthy merchant in a similar fur-trimmed hat, alongwith a fur-trimmed tabbaard.[7] Bol’s spotted fur pelt—probablysable—would have likewise been an extremely valuable item. Sable wasexclusively imported from Russia, and its representation here, combinedwith the unusual, oriental-style jacket, is exceptional.[8]Fig 2. Rembrandt vanRijn, Self-Portrait at the Age of34, 1640, oil on canvas, 102 x 80
cm, National Gallery, London,NG672, © National Gallery,London / Art Resource, NYThis inventive costume departs from the type of dress typically worn bysitters in Bol’s portraits, as well as in his tronies and self-portraits.
Following the model provided by Rembrandt in works such as his 1640
Self-Portrait at the Age of 34 (fig 2), Bol depicted male figures wearing oldfashioned velvet berets and elegant cloaks, as in his Portrait of aGentleman (fig 3) and Portrait of a Man in Munich, both dated ca. 1645,and the Leiden Collection’s Man with a Book (FB-100) and Self-Portrait,
behind a Parapet (FB-107).[9] Although Bol occasionally rendered figuresin oriental turbans and helmets, which similarly relied on Rembrandt’s
example, there is no indication that these works were commissionedportraits.

[10]

The only other figure that Bol portrayed so prominently in fur

was the scholar in his Old Man with a Globe in the Hermitage (figFig 3. Ferdinand Bol, Portrait of aGentleman, ca. 1645, oil oncanvas, 86.4 x 70.5 cm, Private
Collection / Bridgeman Images© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat
Page 4 of 94).[11] This work, dated to around 1650, shows the elderly man wearing a
fur-trimmed hat, a spotted fur-lined cloak, and a golden tunic that
resembles the one depicted in Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat.[12]The distinctive character of the Leiden Collection’s portrait broadly reflects
Bol’s approach to portraiture in the second half of the 1640s. The
painting’s bare, brown background, the artist’s use of chiaroscuro, and thefrontal pose of the sitter correspond to works such as the Portrait of aGentleman (fig 3) and the Munich Portrait of a Man.[13] Bol’s treatment of
the composition and the posture of the figure, specifically the commanding
frontal pose and outstretched hand, are seen in Self-Portrait in Dordrecht
from 1646 and Portrait of a Gentleman (fig 3).[14] These similarities
suggest that Bol executed the Leiden Collection work during these sameFig 4. Ferdinand Bol, Old Manwith a Globe, ca. 1650, oil oncanvas, 122 x 98 cm, The
Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburgyears, ca. 1646–48.[15] A date in the mid- to late 1640s more closely
situates the painting in the period following Bol’s training in Rembrandt’s
workshop, reinforcing the probability that the master’s Portrait of Nicolaes
Ruts (fig 1) served as the model for this work.[16] Although the identity ofBol’s sitter is unknown, the prominent display of fur in this portrait bolsters
the argument that he was also involved in the fur trade.[17]-Lara Yeager-Crasselt© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with a Fur-Trimmed Hat
Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. Albert Blankert situated FB-105 among the last of Bol’s tronies executed in the mid-1650s,
following Hofstede de Groot’s dating of ca. 1655. Blankert based his tronie description on
the work’s single-figure, half-length composition and the fancy, exotic costume worn by thesitter. He noted how Bol’s modeling of the form and careful attention to the various textures
in FB-105 relate to the large-scale history paintings that Bol produced in the 1650s. AlthoughBlankert argued that FB-105 exhibits an ease in handling that is not apparent in Bol’spaintings from the 1640s, it bears the strongest similarities in character and composition tothe portraits and self-portraits that Bol produced during that decade. The individuality of thesitter, the exceptional character of his dress, and his forthright pose suggest acommissioned portrait. For a discussion of the possible identity of the sitter, see below. For
Blankert’s discussion of FB-105 in the context of histronies, see Albert Blankert, Ferdinand
Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 57–59, 66–67, no. 66. Questions
surrounding Bol’s portraits and tronies have a long history in the scholarship on the artist.
For a more recent discussion of Bol’s work in this context, see Dagmar Hirschfelder,Tronieund Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008), 136–37,277–82.
2. The same contemporary red cloak appears in a number of Bol’s paintings, including theLeiden Collection’s Self-Portrait, behind a Parapet (FB-107); Self-Portrait, 1646, oil oncanvas, 102 x 85.5 cm, Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht (see below, and FB-107, fig. 3); andSelf-Portrait, ca. 1669, oil on canvas, 128 x 104 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
3. See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982),
56–70.
4. Bol often combined old-fashioned and contemporary dress in his tronies and self-portraits,
as discussed in the essay for FB-107, but, to my knowledge, he did not do so in formal
portraits.
5. Marieke de Winkel discusses the oriental fashion of diagonal fastening in regard toRembrandt’s Self-Portrait from 1658 in The Frick Collection, New York (oil on canvas, 133.7x 103.8 cm). Under a bright yellow pleated garment with a horizontal neckline and a
brocaded neck cloth, Rembrandt wears a diagonally fastened white garment, joining
sixteenth-century European and oriental fashions. De Winkel suggests that Rembrandt may
have also looked to a portrait print of Maarten Ryckaert, published in Anthony van Dyck’s
Iconographie in 1645, in which the artist wears Polish attire—a fur-lined outer gown and a
diagonally fastened kaftan tied at the waist. It is possible that Bol was also familiar with thisprint when he executed FB-105. It is worth noting that Man in a Fur-Trimmed Hat shares
Rembrandt’s striking frontal pose in this image. See Marieke de Winkel,Fashion and Fancy:
Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam, 2006), 183–86. For Polish© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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costume, see Irena Turnau, History of Dress in Central and Eastern Europe from the
Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Warsaw, 1991), particularly 71–78.
6. Fur hats were commonly cited in seventeenth-century Dutch inventories, along with the furtrimmed tabbaard. See Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in
Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam, 2006), 29–30.
7. For a discussion of the costume worn by Ruts, see Marieke de Winkel,Fashion and Fancy:
Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam, 2006), 26–32. A similar fur hat
appears in a painting attributed to Rembrandt’s workshop, Man with a Fur Hat , StaatlicheMuseen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel.
8. See Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings(Amsterdam, 2006), 28–29, 277 n 16.
9. Bol was especially influenced by Rembrandt’s 1640 Self-Portrait (oil on canvas, 102 x 80cm, National Gallery, London), which served as a model for the younger artist on a numberof occasions. See Bol’s Portrait of a Man, ca. 1645, oil on canvas, 87.5 x 72.5 cm,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich. For Bol’s reliance on
Rembrandt’s prototype, see the essays for FB-100 and FB-107.
10. Young Man with a Sword , ca. 1650, oil on canvas, 204 x 130 cm, The Dayton Art Institute,Dayton, Ohio; Man with Helmet, ca. 1655, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 62.5 cm, Muzeum
Narodowe, Warsaw; Standing Oriental, ca. 1665, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 131 x
102 cm, Milwaukee Art Museum. See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680):
Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), nos. 72, 74–75.
11. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), no. 69.
For the relationship of this work to the tradition of scholarly portraits, see the essay forFB-100.
12. The similarities in costume between these two paintings suggest that they may have beencreated within a few years of each other. For the dating of FB-105, see below. A fur hat also
appears on Eliezer’s knee in FB-106.
13. Similarly, see Portrait of a Man, ca. 1644, oil on canvas, 96 x 79 cm, Städelsches
Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main.
14. Self-Portrait, 1646, oil on canvas, 102 x 85.5 cm, Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht (see theessay for FB-107, fig. 3). See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’sPupil (Doornspijk, 1982), no. 60. In FB-105, Bol opened the angle of the figure’s arm,
making the gesture more direct than in the earlier work, whereas the gesture is reversed in
the Portrait of a Gentleman (fig. 2). For the significance of this gesture in self-portraiture, andparticularly in regard to the Dordrecht portrait, see Hans Joachim Raupp,Untersuchungenzu Kunstlerbildnis und Kunstlerdarstellung in den Niederländen im 17. Jahrhundert(Hildesheim, 1984), 262–64.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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15. This dating is nearly ten years earlier than Albert Blankert’s dating of the mid-1650s. By the1650s, Bol also changed his approach to portraiture. His figures, typically dressed in morereserved contemporary costume, are situated within a definable interior space, often holding
an object or associated with a particular attribute.
16. The close similarities between Rembrandt’s and Bol’s portraits demonstrate the continuing
influence that Rembrandt had on the younger artist, even after Bol left the master’sworkshop.
17. Bol increasingly attracted an elite clientele in the late 1640s and 1650s, and it is conceivablethat a wealthy fur trader was among his patrons. The tradition of a merchant being depicted
in his wares went back to the sixteenth century, as seen in Dirck Jacobsz’s Portrait ofPompejus Occo, 1531, oil on panel, 66.5 x 65 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In this work,Occo, who was active in the Baltic as a trader, is shown wearing a fur-trimmed tabbaard ofcostly lynx. See Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning inRembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam, 2006), 28–29.

Provenance
Private collection Scotland, by 1860.
[Lewis and Simmons, New York, by 1929].1[1]Private collection, Forfar, Scotland, by 1938.
Private collection, Scotland, until 2009 [Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2009].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

Provenance Notes

1. According to the RKD photo file, this provenance was recorded by Hofstede de Groot inFebruary 1929. This listing has not been otherwise confirmed.
2. The Frick Art Reference Library photo file lists the painting with a “Miss Baxter,Kincaldrum, Forfar, Scotland.” Kincaldrum House apparently fell into disrepair sometime inthe mid-20th century. It is not yet clear when the painting entered the Baxter collection or for
how long it was there.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Exhibition History
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, February
2014–February 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].

References
Blankert, Albert. Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), Rembrandt’s Pupil. Doornspijk, 1982, 59,
121, no. 66. Translated from Ferdinand Bol, 1616–1680: een leerling van Rembrandt . The
Hague, 1976.

Technical Summary
The support is composed of two sections of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric joined with avertical seam that passes through the figure’s proper left sleeve.[1] The tacking margins havebeen removed and the support has been lined. Cusping is visible along the left edge only, andthe right has a precisely cut edge, which indicates it may have been trimmed. There are no wax
collection seals, import stamps, stencils, inscriptions or labels along the lining or stretcher
reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied and remains visible through the thinpassages of paint along the background, the curls of hair, and the drying cracks that haveformed along the brown drapery folds along the left side of the composition. The paint has beensmoothly applied with transparent glazes along the figure’s crimson cloak and with areas of low
rounded brushwork along the gold details of the figure’s tabbaard. The light brown fur in theforeground has been painted wet-into-wet with wisps of dark brown paint applied over the top.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The
images reveal minor compositional changes to the fingertips and contours of the figure’s proper
right hand.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
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The painting was cleaned, lined, and restored circa 2009, at which time a compound tear along
the lower left quadrant of the support was repaired. The painting remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. There may be a horizontal seam across the narrow section of fabric (located 28 cm downfrom the upper edge, at the height of the figure’s eyes). If this is the case, the support iscomposed of three sections of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric (see X-radiograph). The
painting was examined on-site with no stereomicroscope. Magnification provided by 5X
Optivisor.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection