The picture will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Baschenis's work being prepared by Franco Paliaga and Pierluigi Carofalo, who date it to circa 1650. Baschenis's authorship has also been independently confirmed by Marco Rosci.

Eric Martin Wunsch was a New York collector with an assiduous appetite for art and antiques who was revered for his eclectic mix of treasures. He was an active and important member of a number of public institutions, such as the New York State Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, to which he donated many works. Examples of his 17th-century European paintings and drawings have been extensively exhibited in museums both in Europe and North America. Old Master Paintings Part I will feature five Dutch Golden Age paintings from the Wunsch Collection and highlighting the group is A traveler at rest by Frans van Mieris I (Leiden 1635–1681) (estimate: $1,500,000–2,500,000). This captivating small-scale oil on copper depicts a red-haired bohemian traveler, a subject that is part of a long tradition in Netherlandish art which fascinated the artist. In 1857, this work was included in the groundbreaking Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester, a seminal event fundamental to transforming the study of art into an academic discipline in England. 

Frans van Mieris I (Leiden 1635-1681), A traveler at rest, signed 'F. van Mieris' (lower right), oil on copper, 8½ x 7 in. (21.6 x 17.8 cm. Estimate: $1,500,000 – $2,500,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: (Probably) Jacob Hoofman, Haarlem, before 1799, and by descent to
Maria or Margaretha Hoofman, Haarlem.
William Wells of Redleaf, London, before 1819; (+), Christie's, London, 12-13 May 1848, lot 85 (493 gns. to Fuller).
Sir Robert Staynor Holford (1808-1892), Dorchester House, London, 1848, and by inheritance to
Sir George Holford, Dorchester House, London; Christie's, London, 17-18 May 1928, lot 21 (504 gns. to Boehler).
Giovanni Agnelli, Turin.
with Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 1988, from whom acquired.
Diethelm Doll, Bad Godesberg.
with David Koetser Gallery, Zurich, from whom acquired by Eric Martin Wunsch.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ERIC MARTIN WUNSCH

Literature: W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, London, 1824, I, p. 206.
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London, 1829, I, no. 79.
G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London, 1854, II, p. 200.
T. Thoré, Trésors d'Art, by W. Burger [pseud.], Paris, 1865, p. 279.
J.D. Champlin and C.C. Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, New York, 1887, III, p. 265.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Esslingen, 1907-1928, X, no. 101, p. 28.
A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, New York, 1913, pp. 777-778.
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Paris, 1953, IV, p. 117.
O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) the Elder, Doornspijk 1981, I, pp. 44-46; II, pp. 18-19, no. 16.
C. Moiso-Diekamp, Das Pendant in der Holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main-Bern-New York, 1987, p. 383, no. D6. Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire, and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Museé Fabre de Montpellier, Paris-Montpellier 1998, p. 195, note 6. I. Horovitz, 'The Materials and Techniques of European Paintings on Copper Supports,' in Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 1575-1775, exhibition catalogue, New York, p. 88, note 41.
A. Laabs, Von der lustvollen Betrachtung der Bilder: Leidener Feinmaler in der Dresdener Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, 2000, pp. 65, 67, note 120.
A. Laabs, The Leiden fijnschilders from Dresden, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle, p. 69.
E. Mai and K. Wettengl, Wettstreit der Künste: Malerei und Skulptur von Dürer bis Daumier, exhibition catalogue, Wolfratshausen, 2002, p. 328.

Exhibited: London, British Institution, 1819, no. 34.
Manchester, Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 1078.
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of Works by Old Masters, 1894, no. 49.
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum, Catalogue de l'exposition de tableaux et de dessins de Rembrandt et d'autres maîtres de Leyde, du dix-septième siècle, 15 July-15 September 1906, no. 27.
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of pictures and other objects of art selected from the collections of Mr. Robert Holford, 1921-1922, no. 35.
New York, Otto Naumann, Ltd., Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, 12 January-1 March 1995, n.p., under "1988".
The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery, Mauritshuis and Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Frans van Mieris 1635-1681, 1 October 2005-21 May 2006, no. 10.

Notes: This captivating small-scale work on copper is a masterwork by the renowned Leiden fijnschilder Frans van Mieris I. In his seminal Treasures of Art in Great Britain of 1854, Gustav Waagen praised this painting as being 'of that soft golden tone, and of that delicate feeling, which distinguish his [Van Mieris'] best pictures' (op. cit., p. 200). Likely dating from the mid-1650s, A traveler at rest depicts a red-haired man sitting on a rock in the shade of antique ruins, holding a bottle in one hand and resting a hat in his lap. A walking stick and fur-lined bag rest on the ground beside him. He appears to be a vagabond, the seam of his coat torn at the shoulder and one sock drooping, exposing his bare knee. Despite his disheveled appearance, the man's alert eyes, the velvety smoothness of his coat sleeves, and his graceful athleticism - evident from the relaxed way his hand rests on his knee - suggest the faded elegance of a bohemian traveler. Adding to the refinement of the painting is the luminous copper support, on which seemingly countless minute details have been rendered with meticulous, jewel-like precision. Upon close inspection, for example, it is possible to see that the walking stick is a tree branch from which small twigs have been removed, leaving circles on the bark. Also visible are individual hairs in the fur of the traveler's bag and the strands of woven straw covering his bottle. Van Mieris' extraordinary ability to render various textures is all the more impressive given the subdued palette of brown, gray and white tones, which also serves to emphasize areas of color such as the patch of blue sky at right and the red of the traveler's hair.

Van Mieris was apparently fascinated with the subject of the seated traveler, as it appears elsewhere in his oeuvre. A similar figure can be found in The Painter in his Studio in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (inv. 1751; see The Hague and Washington op. cit., no. 7; fig. 1). Painted around the same time as the present picture, this latter work depicts an artist and another man near a painting that closely resembles A traveler at rest. In the painting-within-a-painting, a man with a walking stick is seated among ruins; he has removed one sock entirely, leaving a foot exposed. As noted by Otto Naumann, this motif evokes the proverb 'un pied chaussé et l'autre nu' ('one foot shoed, the other bare') found in Carolus Bovillus' book of proverbs, Vulgarium proverbiorum libri tres, of 1591, which reflects the contemporary notion that tasks completed too quickly are done poorly (see Naumann, op. cit., II, pp. 18-19). A related emblem from 1614 by Roemer Visscher again links disheveled stockings to impulsive behavior (The Hague and Washington, op. cit., p. 100). Dutch and Flemish artists of this period often drew from these sources, and the drooping sock appears in paintings such as Simon Kick's Resting traveler (Koller, Zurich, 20 September 2013, lot 3063; fig. 2) which shows a seated man looking outward at the viewer with one fallen sock, his hand resting on his knee.

Drinkers looking out at the viewer was a favorite subject of Flemish artists such as Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6-1638), David Teniers II (1610-1690) and Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664), whose A Man Drinking of the 1640s now in a German private collection (see R. Kultzen, Michael Sweerts, Doornspijk, 1996, p. 90, no. 10, plate 10) provides a particularly compelling comparison to Van Mieris' picture. Sweerts' traveler also sits among ruins with a blue sky beyond, holding a bottle with a rounded base covered in a fitted straw basket, known as a fiasco. Even more similar is Sweerts' Old Peasant in the Capitoline Museum, Rome (inv. 171; see Kultzen,op. cit., pp. 89-90, no. 8, plate 8 and Naumann, op. cit., I, p. 46; fig. 3), in which a traveler sits in nearly the same position, facing the viewer and surrounded by similar accoutrements, with a bright blue sky visible through the archway at right. Although Van Mieris never visited Italy and thus could not have known this picture by Sweerts, he must have been familiar with similar types through copies or comparable works by Netherlandish artists who had traveled there. Indeed, in the present picture, the cerulean sky, classical arches, and sun-bleached landscape evoke the Roman campagna more than the waterlogged, dune-filled Dutch terrain.

The theme of the traveler is part of a long tradition in Netherlandish art, of which perhaps the best-known prototype is Hieronymus Bosch's The Pedlar in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. 1079; fig. 4). Like Van Mieris' protagonist, Bosch's figure has a bag, hat, stick and untidy clothing. The Pedlar has been interpreted as embodying the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), the young man who squanders his inheritance on frivolous amusements in a distant land before returning home repentant, or, alternatively, as representing all mankind, striving to improve himself even as he is surrounded by opportunities for sin (see F. Lammertse, Van Eyck to Bruegel, 1400-1550: Dutch and Flemish painting in the collection of the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1994, pp. 91-95). The meaning of Van Mieris' traveler is similarly complex: he is unambiguously drinking and living as a vagrant, yet his clear, intelligent gaze and handsome features distinguish him from the boorish peasants of Brouwer and Teniers. A possible pendant, similar in size and also on copper, is Van Mieris' The Broken Egg in the Hermitage Museum. In this painting, a woman sits on the ground beside a basket of eggs, staring forlornly at one that has broken on the ground beside her, perhaps referring to her lost virginity (see Naumann, op. cit., I, p. 45). Together, the two pictures might signify a narrative linking her unhappy expression with the traveler's vagrancy, although the ambiguity of Van Mieris' imagery prevents a single, definitive interpretation.

Long known in the literature on Van Mieris, the Traveler at rest reappeared only in 1988, when it was recognized as being on copper rather than wood panel as had been previously thought. The earliest record locates the painting in the Hoofman collection, Haarlem, while in the early 19th century the painting surfaced in England, where it belonged to William Wells of Redleaf before 1819. In 1848, it was in the collection of Robert Staynor Holford (1808-1892), a Member of Parliament and art collector whose residence at Dorchester House, London, was based on the Villa Farnese in Rome. In 1857, Holford loaned the work to the groundbreaking Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester (fig. 5), which was fundamental to the transformation of the study of art into an academic discipline in England. Sometime after being sold at Christie's, London, in 1928, A traveler at rest entered the collection of Giovanni Agnelli, head of the automobile manufacturer Fiat, in Turin, before reemerging on the New York art market. 

(fig. 1) Frans van Mieris, In the Artist's Studio, BPK, Berlin Gemaeldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden Hans-Peter Klut Art Resource, NY.
(fig. 2) Attributed to Simon Kick, A man smoking in an interior, Christie's, Amsterdam, 10 November 2991, lot 127.
(fig. 3) Michael Sweerts, Old pilgrim, Musei Capitolini, Rome.
(fig. 4) Hieronymus Bosch, The Vagabond The Prodigal Son, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands The Bridgeman Art Library.
(fig. 5) Interior view of a section of the National Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, Manchester.

Three works from The Collection of Tom and Ruth Jones will also figure prominently in the sale. From spearheading innovations in aircraft technology and manufacturing to producing two of the most sought-after wines in the world, Tom Jones’s diverse life speaks to the passion he and his wife Ruth have shared for surrounding themselves with beauty in all forms. Their extraordinary art collection, which includes a nucleus of exceptionally fine 17th-century Dutch pictures, reflects a keen eye and level of curatorial excellence developed over more than fifty years of following their creative passion. From the Jones’s collection of exquisite Dutch paintings is Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde’s (Haarlem 1638-1698) The Grote Markt and Town Hall, Haarlem, seen from the East (estimate: $250,000-350,000), depicting Haarlem’s vital commercial, social, religious and civic center. Berckheyde describes this complex and varied structure in fine, minute detail, the composition revealing Berckheyde’s great skill in depicting architecture in space. This commanding painting reflects Haarlem’s long history of city pride, while skillfully adapting an iconic site to accommodate the taste and circumstances of the artist’s contemporaries.  

Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (Haarlem 1638-1698) , The Grote Markt and Town Hall, Haarlem, seen from the East, signed and dated 'Gerrit Berck Heyde. 1691' (lower left), oil on canvas, 20 7/8 x 24 5/8 in. (53 x 62.5 cm.). Estimate: $250,000-350,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Charles Wertheimer, London, c. 1890.
with Charles Brunner, Paris, 1914.
Dr. Leon Lilienfeld, Vienna (1869-1938) and by descent to Mrs. Antonie Lilienfeld; (+), Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 17 May 1972, lot 13 ($85,000).
with Richard Green, London, 1974.
with Johnny van Haeften, London, 1986, where acquired by the present owner.

THE COLLECTION OF TOM AND RUTH JONES

Literature: G. Glück, Niederländische Gemälde aus der Sammlung des Herrn Dr. Leon Lilienfeld in Wien, Vienna, 1917, pp. 40, 60, repr.
N. MacLaren, National Gallery catalogues, The Dutch School, London, 1960, pp. 29-30, under no. 1863.
C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem cityscape painter, Doornspijk, 1991, p. 31, note 10d.
Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, Ghent, 2006, p. 390, under no. 22.

Exhibited: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Grand Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Sixth International Exhibition presented by C.I.N.O.A., La Confédération internationale des négociants en oeuvres d'art, the International Confederation of Dealers in Works of Art, 19 October 1974-5 January 1975, no. 16.

Notes: In his 1628 text, Beschrijvinge ende lof der stad Haarlem, or Description and praise of the town of Haarlem, Samuel Ampzing celebrated the city's central market square, called the Grote Markt, writing "Who ever saw something like it so striking, so spacious?"(Ampzing 1628, p. 40, trans. A. van Suchtelen and A. Wheelock, Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle, 2008, p. 80). When Berckheyde depicted the same site in the present work sixty years later, the Grote Markt was still a vital commercial, social, religious and civic center, much as it is today.
Signed and dated 1691, the present painting has as its main feature the Town Hall, a structure whose complex construction encapsulates Haarlem's architectural history (Biesboer et al., op. cit., pp. 389-390). The original structure dates to the 14th century, while the tower was built in 1465/68. Over a century later, city architect Lieven de Key added an exterior staircase (1598) and a wing for the town council and prison (1625). In 1630, eight years before Berckheyde's birth, Salomon de Bray designed the building's tribunal and large balcony with classical flourishes. Though many of these elements were removed or rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are captured in the present work.

In the present painting, Berckheyde describes this complex and varied structure in fine, minute detail, effectively setting off its soft gray, orange and tan hues against a bright blue sky. The picture reveals Berckheyde's great skill in depicting architecture in space: the long shadows extend from the left to accentuate the flat plane of the plaza, which in turn emphasizes the height and majesty of the Town Hall. Such pictures made Berckheyde, along with his brother Job, enormously successful in Haarlem. Indeed, in the 1660s they developed the cityscape as an independent form, returning repeatedly to local subjects such as the Grotekerk (also called St. Bavo) and the Grote Markt, a favorite of Berckheyde, who was partial to depicting open public spaces. While most were commissioned for display in civic buildings to encourage city pride, the number of extant cityscapes by the Berckheydes and their peers suggests that Haarlem residents purchased them for their homes as well (Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 30-32). Other versions of the present view exist, showing variations in figural elements, with dates spanning from 1661 to the current picture's 1691; one, dated 1671, is now preserved in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (inv. OS 1-10).

Berckheyde's townscapes relate to an established tradition in Haarlem of celebrating local landmarks. In this painting, Berckheyde alludes to the building's function as a civil court through his choice of figures, many of whom wear the black coats and white ruffs of magistrates, thus recalling Ampzing's words, "Now the Town Hall is here, where for the town The councils are busy giving good advice, Where justice is done when a quarrel originates And where he who indulges too much is punished" (trans. Lawrence, op. cit., p. 31). The painting resembles the print of the Haarlem Town Hall by Jan van de Velde II after Pieter Saenredam that accompanied Ampzing's 1628 text (fig. 1). While clearly aware of this precedent, Berckheyde has updated it with references to the French invasion of 1672 (Van Suchtelen and Wheelock, op. cit. p. 80). The elegant man at center, for instance, contrasts with the more conservatively attired magistrates, as he wears a vivid blue coat and red stockings in the French fashion popular in Haarlem in the latter part of the century. And in marked contrast to Ampzing's moralizing tone is the light-hearted vignette of children at right, coaxing a goat to pull a baby in a small cart. This commanding picture thus reflects Haarlem's long history of city pride, while skillfully adapting an iconic site to accommodate the taste and circumstances of the artist's contemporaries. 

(fig. 2) A view of the Grote Markt, Haarlem, Mikhail Markovskiy.
(fig. 1) Etching after Saenredam, View of the Grote Markt in Haarlem with the townhall, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 

The taste and connoisseurship exhibited by Dutch dealer-brothers Benjamin and Nathan Katz over the course of their distinguished careers place them among the most important dealers of the 20th-century. A recently restituted work from their collection is Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, in a cloak and bejeweled hat (estimate: $1,500,000–2,500,000). This striking picture is a rare, early masterpiece by Rembrandt’s gifted and accomplished pupil Ferdinand Bol (Dordrecht 1610-1680 Amsterdam). Created circa 1642, the present Portrait of a Gentleman is contemporaneous with Bol’s earliest signed and dated works. Bol’s paintings from this early period reveal the most compelling similarities to Rembrandt’s work, and the present portrait - long attributed to the older master - is no exception. Light falling from the left powerfully models the sitter’s features as it exposes subtle wrinkles around the eyes, individual bristles of facial hair, and gently closed lips. Where shadows fall on the sitter’s face, colors are carefully modulated to create a strong effect of three-dimensionality. The glistening beads in the figure’s high cap and the details of the brocaded cloak about his shoulders, fastened over his chest by a luminous golden clasp, also animate and lend a vivid naturalness to the image while the thoughtful, somewhat melancholy gaze of Bol’s handsome sitter adds a psychological dimension to the picture. 

Ferdinand Bol (Dordrecht 1610-1680 Amsterdam), Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, in a cloak and bejeweled hat, oil on canvas, the upper corners made up, 34¼ x 30¾ in. (87 x 78.1 cm.). Estimate: $1,500,000–2,500,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. (1817-1901), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, and by descent to his son
Sir Frederick Cook, 2nd Bt. (1844-1920), and by descent to his son
Sir Herbert Cook, 3rd Bt. (1868-1939).
Acquired by Nathan Katz in March 1940 via Thomas Agnew & Sons, sold from the Cook Collection by the Trustees of the 1939 Picture Settlement;
Acquired by Dr. Hans Posse for the 'Sonderauftrag Linz', 19 November 1941, for FL. 60,000 as 'Rembrandt van Rijn' (Linz inv. 2048).
Transferred to the Munich Collecting Point (Mü 1658) by Western Allied Forces, 30 June 1945 and repatriated to the Netherlands, 29 April 1946.
On loan to the Stedelijk Museum het Catharine Gasthuis, Gouda, the Netherlands by the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit (NK 1668).
Restituted to the heirs of Benjamin Katz and Nathan Katz on 17 December 2012.

NATHAN AND BENJAMIN KATZ: DEALER-CONNOISSEURS

In the early 20th century, David Katz established an antiques business in Dieren, a town near Arnhem in the eastern Netherlands. Two of his four sons, Nathan and Benjamin Katz (fig. 1), formed a partnership around 1930 under the name of their father's business, Firma D. Katz, continuing to operate in Dieren and eventually opening a branch in The Hague. The firm flourished in the 1930s under the astute stewardship of the two brothers, who orchestrated the purchase of many masterworks of Old Master paintings from illustrious collections throughout Europe, especially from the great aristocratic houses in England. 

Like all major European art dealers of the day, the Katz brothers also established prestigious contacts in the United States. At home in Dieren, they organized numerous exhibitions in their elegant galleries, accompanied by catalogues that showcased the serious scholarship, sophisticated connoisseurship, and fine aesthetic sensibility that the firm was known for. The brothers were well-known bidders in many of the great sales of their generation and, when they could not be present for auctions in person, often enlisted the London-based dealer Edward Speelman to purchase paintings on their behalf. Speelman, for example, purchased Rembrandt's Musical Allegory (fig. 2) at the Cripps sale at Christie's in London on 16 November 1936. Soon after, the painting was with Firma D. Katz, and now has a place of honor among the great master's works in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 

As the Katz brothers' reputation as connoisseurs grew, their bearing on contemporary taste became ever more powerful. Nathan in particular developed a deep knowledge of Dutch painting and became one of the foremost experts in the field; it is surely in part due to his excellent taste and thoughtful purchases that many important late 16th and 17th-century Dutch pictures have found their way into important public collections. Among these, to name just a few, are great works by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jan Steen (fig. 3). 

A testament to the Katz brothers' taste and expertise was their ability to make a number of significant, competitive purchases of paintings en bloc in the mid- to late 1930s. One such acquisition occurred in the summer of 1939, when the grand and exceedingly important picture collection formed by Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. (1817-1901), which had passed by family inheritance to Sir Herbert Cook, 3rd Bt. (1868-1939), was dispersed. The collection, housed at Doughty House in Richmond, Surrey, comprised great treasures now exhibited in museums around the world, including Velazquez's Old Woman Cooking Eggs (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland), Turner's The Fifth Plague of Egypt (Indianapolis, Indianapolis Museum of Art), and the recently rediscovered Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci that was exhibited at the National Gallery, London in 2011-2012. The Katz brothers immediately recognized the quality of the works amassed by Cook and seized the opportunity to procure them. They were the first dealers to purchase from Sir Herbert's estate, allowing them to select from among the finest pictures: they chose approximately forty Dutch and Flemish works, including the present Portrait of a gentleman by Ferdinand Bol, as well as a great oil sketch by Rubens (The Triumph of Rome; The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery) and a precious Lady at a virginalby Gabriel Metsu (on loan in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen). The taste and connoisseurship exhibited by Benjamin and Nathan Katz over the course of their distinguished careers places them among the most important dealers of the 20th century, whose enduring influence on the art world can still be felt today. 

(fig. 1) Antiques. Antiques Art Trade "Katz" in Dieren, the Netherlands: the owners B. and N. Katz, 1936. Nationaal Archief/Spaarnestad Photo/Het Leven/Photographer unknown.
(fig. 1) Jan Steen, Peasants Before an Inn, 1650s, Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1945.32.
(fig. 2) Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Portrait of an Oriental Man Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA Artothek The Bridgeman Art Library.
(fig. 7) Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Portrait of a man in Oriental costume, 1633 Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany Giraudon The Bridgeman Art Library.

PROPERTY FROM THE HEIRS OF NATHAN AND BENJAMIN KATZ

Literature: J. O. Kronig, A catalogue of the paintings at Doughty house, Richmond, & elsewhere in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook, bt., visconde de Monserrate, London, 1913-1915, II, no. 216, as 'dated 1642'.
A. Bredius, 'Self-Portraits by Ferdinand Bol', The Burlington Magazine, XLII, 1923, p. 312.
J. H. J. Mellaart, 'Self-Portraits by Ferdinand Bol', The Burlington Magazine, XLIII, 1923, pl. III E, as dated 1642.
Abridged catalogue of the pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart., London, 1932, no. 216, as dated 1642.
H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende kunstenaars, Amsterdam, 1963, p. 30, no. 6.
A. Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680): een leerling van Rembrandt, 's-Gravenhage, 1976, p. 208, no. A 73-1.
C. Wright, Paintings in Dutch museums: an index of Oil Paintings in Public Collections in the Netherlands by Artists born before 1870, London, 1980, p. 45.
A. Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680): Rembrandt's Pupil, Doornspijk, 1982, no. 73, pl. 82.
The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts The Hague, Old master paintings: an illustrated summary catalogue, Zwolle, 1992, p. 46 no. 238.
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden, Landau, I, p. 301, no. 120.

Notes: This striking picture is a rare, early masterpiece by Rembrandt's gifted and accomplished pupil Ferdinand Bol. Born and baptized in Dordrecht, Bol went to Amsterdam to study with Rembrandt in about 1636, and probably remained in the studio until about 1641. Some scholars have proposed that Bol may have even become an assistant to the older master, a level of responsibility suggested by his having witnessed a document in 1640 concerning the inheritance of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh (1612-1642). Like that of his teacher, Bol's oeuvre largely consists of history pictures, portraits, and genre figures dressed in exotic costumes. Bol also remained deeply influenced by Rembrandt's palette, technique, and compositions through the 1640s. Bol was successful throughout his entire career, and by the mid-1650s was unrivalled by any of his contemporaries in Amsterdam in receiving official commissions.

Datable to c. 1642, the present Portrait of a Gentleman is contemporaneous with Bol's earliest signed and dated works, such as the Portrait of a Woman (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art); the Portrait of a Young Woman (Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art); and the Portrait of a middle-aged woman (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). Unsurprisingly, Bol's paintings from this early period reveal the most compelling similarities to Rembrandt's work, and the present portrait-- long attributed to the older master--is no exception. Light falling from the left powerfully models the sitter's features as it exposes subtle wrinkles around the eyes, individual bristles of facial hair, and gently closed lips. Where shadows fall on the sitter's face, colors are carefully modulated to create a strong effect of three-dimensionality. The glistening beads in the figure's high cap and the details of the brocaded cloak about his shoulders, fastened over his chest by a luminous golden clasp, also animate and lend a vivid naturalness to the image. 

Such naturalistic details enhanced by the play of light reflect the influence of Rembrandt's portraiture. In theMan in Oriental Costume at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), for example, light is focused dramatically on the sitter's face and on the embellishments of his lavish costume. The latter portrait also shows the manner in which Rembrandt built up areas of rich impasto by applying paint layers wet into wet, a technique Bol certainly learned in Rembrandt's studio and which he has employed in the present painting with great finesse, most notably in the sitter's face and on the central details of his costume. Similarly, Rembrandt rendered the softer textures of fur and silk in his Man in Oriental Costume by applying paint more thinly, just as Bol here has here evoked the velvetiness of the sitter's red cape with thinner swaths of paint. 

The thoughtful, somewhat melancholy gaze of Bol's handsome sitter adds a psychological dimension to the picture. Such sensitivity to the mental preoccupations of his subjects was among Rembrandt's greatest achievements in portraiture--as seen, for example, in his Self-Portrait at the age of 34 (London, National Gallery), painted just a few years before the present work--and no doubt informed Bol's approach to his sitters. However, as Walter Liedtke notes, "Rembrandt's example was obviously important for Bol's early efforts as a portraitist...[but] Bol's earliest dated portraits reveal a mastery of technique and composition and a gift for characterization that are quite his own" (W. Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, I, p. 46). The present Portrait of a gentleman, which invites the viewer to contemplate the identity and circumstances of its sitter, is among Bol's most compelling and masterful achievements in the genre. 

Perhaps due to its introspective mood, the present work was formerly identified as a self-portrait. This theory has now generally been dismissed, however, and it seems more likely that the painting is of a type popular among Rembrandt and his followers, in which models dressed in exotic costumes would have evoked the Near East for contemporary Dutch viewers. By the early 17th century, the commercial enterprises of the Dutch republic had reached the Middle East and fascination with the region was widespread in the Netherlands. Wealthy patricians collected myriad objects from the Levant, and Rembrandt himself seems to have had akunstkammer of this type. The objects he collected often appear in his paintings and in those of his pupils. Like Rembrandt's Bust of a Man in Oriental Dress (Munich, Alte Pinakothek, fig. 3), the present subject wears a cloak with brocade border slung over his shoulders and clasped over his chest with a gold chain. Such an exotic outfit may well have been part of Rembrandt's collection, and could have inspired the costume in the present painting, executed nearly ten years later, probably just after Bol left Rembrandt's studio. 

The present Portrait of a gentleman was acquired, probably in the late 19th century, by one of the most distinguished connoisseurs of the day, Sir Francis Cook (1817-1901). Cook began collecting paintings in 1868 with the guidance of Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), a luminary and leader in the Victorian art world and the first superintendent of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert Museum, London). Cook began collecting Italian paintings but soon turned to Dutch pictures, purchasing with such a voracious passion that by 1876 he owned 510 paintings. The extraordinary group of Old Master pictures he amassed was housed at Doughty House in Richmond, and included masterpieces such as Jan and Hubert van Eyck's Three Maries at the Tomb (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, inv. 2339), Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi's Adoration of the Magi (Washington, National Gallery, inv. 1952.2.2), and Titian's La Schiavona(London, National Gallery, inv. NG5385), to name just a few. The present painting appears in the Doughty House catalogues of 1913-1915, which note that it was previously ascribed to Rembrandt. The portrait was evidently first recognized as a work by Bol when it entered the Cook collection, where it was surely a highlight among the other great Dutch pictures. 

(fig. 3) Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Musical Company, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
(fig. 6) Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Self Portrait at the Age of 34, 1640. © National Gallery, London Art Resource, NY.