Ferdinand Bol(Dordrecht 1616 – 1680Amsterdam)

How To CiteBakker, Piet. "Ferdinand Bol." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. NewYork, 2017.
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Ferdinand Bol was baptized in Dordrecht on 24 June 1616. His parents were the surgeon Balthasar Bol andTanneke Fernandes.[1] We do not know from whom Bol received his first lessons in painting in his nativecity. A logical candidate is Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp (1594–1652), Dordrecht’s most esteemed and talented
painter. The long-held assumption that Bol must also have studied for a while under a Utrecht master
derives chiefly from an incorrect reading of the signature on a “Bloemaert-like” Vertumnus from around
1635, which until recently was considered to be Bol’s first signed painting.[2] In December 1635 he signed
four notarial deeds in Dordrecht as “Ferdinandus bol, schilder” (Ferdinandus Bol, painter), indicating that hehad completed his training by that year.
Soon thereafter, in 1636, Bol left his hometown and set off as a master painter for Amsterdam, where heworked under Rembrandt, the first of the Dordrecht artists to do so.[3] Bol rapidly mastered Rembrandt’s
style and subsequently worked for a few years as a full-fledged assistant in his workshop on the Nieuwe
Doelenstraat. The documentary evidence for Bol’s association with Rembrandt includes an annotation on
the verso of a drawing by Rembrandt that can be dated around 1636.[4] This inscription in Rembrandt’s
handwriting mentions the sale of work by “fardijnandus.” Furthermore, “” also witnessed a document dated
30 August 1640, in which Rembrandt empowers a Frisian lawyer to settle an inheritance matter inLeeuwarden.
Bol probably worked with Rembrandt until shortly before 1642, the year of his earliest dated
paintings. Around that time—possibly in 1641, when Bol’s father died—he established himself as anindependent artist in Amsterdam and embarked on a successful career as a history and portrait painter.
Like his teacher, he produced many tronies, the first of which date from 1644.[6] His work, especially hisportraits, was strongly indebted to Rembrandt’s style until around 1650. A telling example of this influence isthe famous likeness of Elisabeth Bas (1571–1649), presently considered by most scholars to be an early
portrait by Bol, but previously thought to be an important work by Rembrandt.[7] He also adopted his
master’s predilection for self-portraits: there are at least six likenesses of Bol sporting a typical painter’sbonnet from the second half of the 1640s.[8]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Bol’s growing reputation led to his first major commission in 1649, a portrait of the regents of the Lepers’
Asylum.[9] The palette of this group portrait strongly recalls that of Rembrandt, yet the poses of the regents
foreshadow the elegance that would increasingly mark Bol’s portraits from 1650 on. Possibly with an eye toupcoming commissions for the prestigious decorative program of the new town hall, Bol acquired
citizenship in 1652. A year later he executed his first significant commission outside of Amsterdam—agroup portrait of the officers of the Gouda civic guard.[10]Bol married in October 1653, at which time he was recorded as living on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal.
Through Lysbeth’s father, Elbert Dell (1595–1667), a wine merchant and auctioneer of the Admiralty, andher mother, Cornelia Spiegel (1606–46), Bol gained entry into the Amsterdam patriciate.[11] His in-laws thus
played a pivotal role in the numerous prestigious and well-paid commissions he received from various
municipal boards of governors after his marriage,[12] such as those from the burgomasters’ and aldermen’schamber in the new town hall in the period when Lysbeth’s uncle, Hendrick Spiegel, was burgomaster.[13]Bol did not secure these commissions solely under the auspices of his influential relatives; his success wasalso due to his great talent. He was present, along with his master, Rembrandt, in the Kloveniersdoelen in
1654 at a celebration held by the Guild of Saint Luke, which inspired Jan Vos (ca. 1610–67) to write hispaean to the leading Amsterdam painters of his day, including Bol.[14] It was hardly a coincidence that
virtually all of the painters who worked on the new town hall appeared in Vos’s poem. One year later, in1655, Bol was “head man” of the Guild of Saint Luke and in this capacity, together with the painter-dealerDavid Colijns, appraised a collection of paintings, a role he would assume on several other occasions aswell.[15] In 1658 he confessed, with Govert Flinck and two other painters, to having drawn from nude female
models (which was illegal at the time).
Bol faced personal adversity in 1660 when his wife died just after giving birth to their son Balthasar.
Professionally, though, he remained very busy. In the first half of the 1660s he received a number ofcommissions for group portraits of governors, as well as of individual sitters. He also landed a few importantand lucrative commissions outside of Amsterdam. The exceptionally wealthy Utrecht widow Jacoba
Lampsins (1613/14–67) ordered four monumental history paintings for the salet (drawing room) of herhouse on the elegant Nieuwegracht in the early 1660s.[16] He also painted a large chimneypiece, Allegoryon the Municipal Government of Leiden, for the burgomasters’ chamber of the Leiden town hall in 1664.[17]Bol had so much work in the 1660s that it is difficult to imagine he did not have some form of assistance.
How long Frans van Ommeren served as Bol’s assistant is not known, but a document from 1662 indicatesthat he was partly responsible for the workshop production. In his Schouburgh, Houbraken mentioned twoother pupils of Bol: Cornelis Bisschop (1630–74) of Dordrecht, and the German painter Godfrey Kneller(1646–1723), who became the leading portraitist in England after the death of Sir Peter Lely (1618–80).[18]On 10 October, two days after Rembrandt’s burial, Bol took a second wife, the fabulously wealthy Anna vanErckel (1624–80), widow of Erasmus Scharlaken, treasurer of the Admiralty. They were alreadyacquainted, as Bol had portrayed her and Scharlaken as Isaac and Rebecca in a painting from ca.
1648.[19] According to his marriage settlement, Bol owned sixty paintings, and his possessions, partly
belonging to his first wife, were valued at a hefty 14,800 guilders.[20] Anna van Erckel was at least three© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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times wealthier than he was; the couple was so affluent in fact that Bol no longer had to earn a living. He
seems to have stopped painting fairly soon after he married, and lived chiefly off his investments. His last
dated painting is from 1669.
Many of his final commissions stemmed from his good relations with the Admiralty. For instance, between
1667 and 1669 he painted a series of portraits of Admiral Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter (1607–76), whose
popularity had reached record heights in the Dutch Republic following his heroic expedition toChatham.[21] In 1672 Bol exchanged his house on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal for one on the Keizersgracht,
between the Vijzelstraat and the Reguliersgracht. The dire economic crisis after 1672 seems to have left
him and his wife unscathed. When the 200th penny levy was charged in 1674, their initial fortune seems
even to have increased. As befitting a man of his standing, he joined the boards of several municipal
institutions, and in 1675 he, the painter of so many regents, was himself portrayed as a member of such aboard.[22] Anna van Erckel died in April 1680. Bol survived his wife by only a few months and was buried in
the Zuiderkerk on 24 July of that year.

-Piet Bakker

Endnotes
1. Unless otherwise indicated, all of the biographical information is taken from Albert Blankert,
Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982).
2. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 16–17,
no. 35, pl. 1. The attribution to Bol can no longer be sustained given that the signature on thepainting must be read as that of Ferdinandus West, who was active in The Hague between 1637
and 1683. See Erna Kok, “Zonder vrienden geen carrière. De succesvolle loopbanen van dezeventiende-eeuwse kunstenaars Govert Flinck en Ferdinandus Bol,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27(2011): 310–11.
3. He would be followed by Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78), Jacobus Levecq (1634–75),
Nicolaes Maes (1634–93), and Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), all from Dordrecht, and perhaps
also by Abraham van Dijck (1635/36–80).
4. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London and New York,1973), 2:106–7, no. 448.
5. These are two portraits of unknown women, in Berlin and Baltimore, respectively, see AlbertBlankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 136–37, no. 117,
pl. 126, and 138, no. 121, pl. 130.

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6. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 2, 57–58.
7. Portrait of Elisabeth Jacobsdr Bas (1571–1649) , ca. 1641, oil on canvas, 118 x 91.5 cm,Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vierBänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 5:3084–85, no. 2016. Moreover, Blankert does not support theattribution to Bol and thus includes the portrait in his catalogue of rejected works; Albert Blankert,Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 13, 57, 184, R200, fig. 50.
8. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 58,118–21, nos. 60–65, pls. 60–65.
9. Four Regents of the Lepers’ Asylum , signed and dated 1649, oil on canvas, 224 x 310 cm,Amsterdams Museum, Amsterdam. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’sPupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 20, 59, 61, 67, 68, 155, no. 177, pl. 189; Werner Sumowski,Gemälde
der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 1:315, no. 179.
10. Officers of the Gouda Militia under Colonel Govert Suijs , signed and dated 1653, oil oncanvas, 213 x 252 cm, Museum het Catharina Gasthuis, Gouda. Albert Blankert,Ferdinand Bol(1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 20, 68, 156, no. 178, pl. 19; Werner
Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden , 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 1:315, no.
180.
11. Bol’s mother-in-law was the sister of Elbert Spiegel (1600–74), receiver-general of theAdmiralty, married to Elisabeth de Vlaming van Oudthorn (1600–69), whose father, Cornelis deVlaming van Oudthorn, served as burgomaster nine times beween 1656 and 1680. Bol portrayedthe couple in 1660 (both oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm, Museum Briner und Kern, Winterthur).
Cornelia had another brother, Hendrick Spiegel, a merchant and a council member between
1655 and 1665, who was elected burgomaster four times. For the Spiegel family’s artistic
patronage, see R. E. O. Ekkart, “A Portrait Historié with Venus and Cupid: Ferdinand Bol and thePatronage of the Spiegel Family,” Simiolus 29 (2002): 14–41.
12. Bol worked for the Women’s House of Correction (ca. 1655), the Wine Merchants’ Guild(1659), the Lepers’ Asylum (1661), the Admiralty (1661–63), and the Zuiderkerk (1669). For asurvey, see Albert Blankert, Kunst als regeringszaak in Amsterdam in de 17e eeuw. Rondom
schilderijen van Ferdinand Bol (Amsterdam, 1975); Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol(1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 48–55.

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13. For Bol’s commissions for the Amsterdam town hall, see Albert Blankert, Kunst als
regeringszaak in Amsterdam in de 17 e eeuw. Rondom schilderijen van Ferdinand Bol(Amsterdam, 1975), 11–36, and Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’sPupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 108–18.
14. See, for example, Nina Geerdink, “De man van het beeld aan het woord. Jan Vos’ ‘Zeege derSchilderkunst’ (1654),” Nieuw Letterkundig Magazijn 28 (2010): 45–50.
15. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 73. Heappraised the paintings owned by Johannes Verspreet in Amsterdam on 13 December 1656.
Together with the art dealer Gerrit Uylenburgh, he appraised the paintings of Francois Gysels
and Laurens Mauritsz Douci on 16 July 1666 and 18 January 1669, respectively; Albert Blankert,Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 76.
16. Margriet van Eikema Hommes, Art and Allegiance in the Dutch Golden Age: The Ambitionsof a Wealthy Widow in a Painted Chamber by Ferdinand Bol (Amsterdam, 2012).
17. The painting is now known only from photographs. It was lost in the fire at the Leiden town
hall in 1929. Marike Hoogduin-Berkhout, “’Op de geluckige regeeringe van Leiden’.
Geschilderde voorstellingen in het Leidse stadhuis 1575–1700,’’ De Zeventiende Eeuw 22(2006): 87–92. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk,1982), 21, 50, 75, no. 44, pl. 56.
18. See the biography of Godfrey Kneller in this catalogue.
19. Couple in a Landscape, ca. 1648, oil on canvas, 100 x 92 cm, Dordrechts Museum,Dordrecht (see FB-106, fig. 3); Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil(Doornspijk, 1982), 23, 151, no. 167, pl. 178; Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der RembrandtSchüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 1:208, no. 150. It is virtually certain that thisportrait corresponds with the description of “des Overledens en desselfs eerste mancontrefeytsel verthonende Isacq en Rebecca in een ebbe lijst door Ferd. Bol” (the likeness of thedeceased and her first husband in the guise of Isaac and Rebecca in an ebony frame by Ferd.
Bol) in the estate inventory of Anna van Erckel (1681). Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol(1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 84–85.
20. For a transcript of the marriage settlement, including all of the paintings, see Albert Blankert,Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 76–78.

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21. Bol received this commission from the Admiralty on the occasion of De Ruyter’s victory overthe English in the Four Days’ Battle in 1666. The portrait of De Ruyter was intended for thechambers of the Admiralties in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Middelburg, Harlingen, Enkhuizen, andHoorn, and so six copies of this “state portrait” were made. At present, copies can be found in
the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the WestfriesMuseum in Hoorn. Subsequently, Bol (his workshop) received orders for a few more versions ofthe “state portrait.” Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk,1982), 23, 63, 123–28, nos. 76–87, pls. 84–95; Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der RembrandtSchüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 1:314, no. 177.
22. Pieter van Anraedt (before 1640–78), Six Regents and the Warden of the Old Peoples’
Hospital in Amsterdam, signed and dated 1675, oil on canvas, 237 x 425 cm, Amsterdam
Museum. Ferdinand Bol is seated at the far left.

Literature
Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of Rembrandt. 6 vols. Edited by Eva Benesch. London andNew York, 1973.
Blankert, Albert. Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil. Doornspijk, 1982.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden.

6 vols. Landau,1983.
Hoogduin-Berkhout, Marike. “’Op de geluckige regeeringe van Leiden’. Geschilderdevoorstellingen in het Leidse stadhuis 1575–1700.’’ De Zeventiende Eeuw 22 (2006): 87–92.
Geerdink, Nina. “De man van het beeld aan het woord. Jan Vos’ ‘Zeege der Schilderkunst’1654.” Nieuw Letterkundig Magazijn 28 (2010): 45–50.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection