Ferdinand Bol Dordrecht 1616 - 1680 Amsterdam

Probably purchased by Maximilian II Emanuel, Bavarian Elector (1662-1726);
According to family tradition by whom presented to Count Johann Franz Ignaz Seyboltsdorff (1673-1711). Count Seyboltsdorff, son of Johann Georg Graf Freyen-Seyboltsdorff (1618-1699, created Freiherr in 1669 and Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692), was Chamberlain and Privy Councillor to the Elector. It is said that this painting was part of a compensation the elector gave Seyboltsdorff as thanks for supporting his political aims;
By descent at Schloß Seyboltsdorff, (built in the 15th century and altered in the late 18th century, illustrated in Wening, Historico-topographica description Bavariae, 1701/26) to the last member of the Seyboltsdorff family, Karl August Graf von Freyen-Seyboltsdorff (1867-1945);
After his death given to the present owner's late father.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a very old lining, now scarcely attached, and possibly the original stretcher. The damp which deteriorated the glue of the lining also undermined the size in the original canvas and the adhesion between the ground and the paint, so that various places have quite extensive flaking. In particular by the central stretcher bar, with a large patch of lost paint in the lower centre, and other quite wide patches at the centre of the top and the centre of the base. The lower stretcher bar line has narrow losses almost throughout its length, with much brittle flaking in the lower right area, and a two inch square section of the canvas in the right base corner is missing. Most of the flaking losses have not been touched, but there is a patch of flaking in the red drapery just to the right of centre that has very old darkened retouching roughly daubed across it. Other such rough repaint covers two lost patches in the face of Elijah, with a few surface streaks of similar yellow repaint over intact original in the face, and there is one other narrow line of discoloured repaint horizontally across the upper sleeve of the angel. The lighter areas in general appear to have been cleaned perhaps once only, in the distant past but quite extensively, and nothing more seems to have been done perhaps since the eighteenth century, with the exception probably of the yellow on Elijah's face. Some darker areas may never have been cleaned, often in the background but some patches for instance of the angel's hair seem to have been quite radically cleaned with surrounding paint apparently less so or not at all, equally the angel's wings around the silhouette of the head, are suddenly green beside the immediate deep brown of the wings generally. Some of the richer final brown madder glazing could perhaps be thin, in some of these places that were once cleaned, perhaps in the vegetation and in the drapery, with perhaps some final glazes in the faces, although the opacity of the old varnish makes such judgement difficult. However the swirl of the core Rembrandtesque brushwork, for example in the heads, the angel's drapery and the vegetation appears to be finely intact, as is the overall impact of the dramatic treatment of light and the expressive detail despite centuries of evident neglect. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This previously unrecorded picture was painted by Ferdinand Bol in Amsterdam in the first half of the 1640s, probably circa 1643-44, shortly after he had left Rembrandt's studio and established himself as an independent master.  A recent rediscovery (though by family tradition accurately known as 'Pupil of Rembrandt'), it has remained in private hands since its purchase in the 18th century and has never been shown in public.

The subject
This is taken from I Kings, Chapter 19, Verses 4 to 8.  Driven into the desert by Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, King of Israel, and about to die, the Hebrew prophet Elijah asked God to end his life, and lay down under a juniper tree and fell asleep. An angel sent by God appeared to Elijah bringing food and drink which gave him strength to continue in the desert for forty days until he reached Mount Horeb where God appeared to him in the breath of wind.

Rembrandt and Bol's early work
Ferdinand Bol joined Rembrandt's workshop in the second half of the 1630s, most probably some time between 1635 and 1637, following an apprenticeship to the portrait painter Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp in his native Dordrecht. In 1637 Rembrandt noted the sale of one of Fardinandus' paintings on the reverse of a drawing. Bol left Rembrandt at the beginning of the 1640s, perhaps following the death of his father in 1641, when he inherited sufficient wealth to start his own business. His first signed and dated work is from 1642 but both Albert Blankert and Werner Sumowski assume that Gideon's Sacrifice, Bol's first signed work, was painted one year earlier in 1641.¹

Like Rembrandt, Bol worked mainly as a history painter and portraitist. Although an excellent still life painter, still lifes are in the minority in his oeuvre. Between 1641 and 1644 he executed five history pieces all representing biblical scenes, three of them depicting an angel appearing to a man, namely Gideon's Sacrifice (1641, today in Utrecht), Jacob's Dream (1642, today in Dresden) and The Women at the Sepulchre (1644, today in Copenhagen).² The present Angel Appearing to Elijah can be added to this group.  In the handling of light and shade and in the selection of physiognomic types, Bol's early works bear a strong resemblance to Rembrandt. His Gideon is directly derived from his master, for example. As many of Rembrandt's pupils chose biblical scenes with angels as subjects for their early works, Blankert assumed that it was Rembrandt who suggested their themes. Indeed, Rembrandt himself painted many subjects incorporating angels but perhaps more important is that the theme of an angel full of light appearing to a man dressed in brownish tones preferably at night, presented his pupils with an excellent pretext to demonstrate how perfectly they mastered the art of chiaroscuro painting.

In the present work Bol was not however dependent on his master in the devising of the composition.  A pen and brown ink drawing of a sleeping man today in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, is clearly connected with the figure of Elijah, and was probably made by Bol in working out the composition (see Fig. 1).³  This drawing was long thought to be by Rembrandt, and was so catalogued by Otto Benesch in his Rembrandt drawing corpus, and was so considered by Sumowski.⁴  Martin Royalton Kisch was the first to doubt the Rembrandt attribution, while Peter Schatborn presciently attributed it to Bol, the appearance of the present picture confirming his view.⁵

Bol's early 'angel' paintings including the present Angel Appearing to Elijah, although very Rembrandtesque, are peopled by fewer figures and have a less complicated composition than comparable works by Rembrandt, as for example The Angel leaves the Family of Tobias in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. It seems that Bol avoided complex arrangement and the depiction of psychological problems. Sumowski regards the lack of motion and communication between the protagonists as one of the main characteristics of Bol's early works and calls the paintings executed in the 1640s Figurenstillleben (figure still lifes).⁶

Dating
Sumowski dates The Angel appearing to Elijah around 1642 and stresses the close relationship to Jacob's Dream in Dresden (see Fig. 2). The subject, the simple and balanced composition, the still life character of the scene as well as the dreamlike atmosphere can be compared. The most striking similarity lies in the colours and the use of light. Warm brown and yellowish tones predominate, enlivened by touches of green and gold in the shimmering and sparkling wings of the angels and in the tassels and borders of their white dresses. In both paintings the green is discreetly echoed in the collars of the sleeping men. The bright white of the angels' dresses corresponds with the warm brown and red of both Jacob's and Elijah's robes and coats. The dark leaves of the thistles and pumpkins serve to separate foreground and background and to frame the scenes. They build the dark ground for the spectacle of floating light.  In both paintings the main emphasis is on the harmony of colour and chiaroscuro in a balanced composition resulting in a very special magical atmosphere.  Bol makes the observers of the paintings believe that it is really divine light floating around the angels. He wins them by aesthetic rather than narrative means. Here perhaps lies his biggest talent.

Compared to the present painting, Jacob's Dream is of a modest size, much more detailed and a little timid in execution. In size and in the way the figures are set in the direct foreground, occupying almost the whole space in the picture, as well as in a freer and more confident brushwork The Angel Appearing to Elijah is closer to the Judah and Tamar in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (123 by 171 cm.), one of the large, ambitious canvases Bol painted in 1644. The decoration, the tree trunk, the big pumpkin and the way the leaves and Tamar's dress are painted, are also very similar (see fig. 3).  Closer still is Bol's David's Dying Charge to Solomon in Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland (171 by 230 cm.), dated 1643, which shows a David comparable to Elijah and, although situated in an interior, is of a similar composition.⁷

It is therefore likely that the present work dates from after 1642 and probably between 1643 and 1644.

We are grateful to Professor Werner Sumowski for confirming the attribution to Bol on the basis of photographs.

1.  See A. Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) Rembrandt's Pupil, Doornspijk 1982, pp. 94-5, no. 11, reproduced plate 2 (for Bol's life and career see pp.15 ff. and 71 ff. (Documents)). For all previous literature also see Blankert.  See also W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau-Pfalz 1983, vol. 1, p. 291, no. 79, reproduced p. 318.
2.  See Blankert, op. cit., pp. 91-2, 94-5, 97, nos. 5, 11, 15; and Sumowski, op. cit., pp. 291-2, nos. 79, 80, 83, reproduced pp. 318, 319 and 322.
3.  Pen and bistre, 85 by 115 mm., Paris, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt.
4.  O. Benesch, The drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 1, p. 47, no. 167, fig. 196, as depicting ('Tobit (?) sleeping beneath a tree', about 1638); and W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York 1979, p. 348, no. 162.
5.  M. Royalton Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, London 1992, p. 187, no. 90 (note 2).  Peter Schatborn's view was expressed by email.  He will publish the drawing as by Ferdinand Bol in his forthcoming catalogue of the Fondation Custodia drawings, due to appear in 2008. 
6.  W. Sumowski, op. cit, pp. 282 and 283: " ...aber er fasst Figurenszenen wie Stillleben auf und vermeidet es auf psychologische und geistliche Probleme einzugehen. ... Wo Bol in den vierziger Jahren mit wenigen Personen auskommt und wo er Szenen in Figurenstillleben umdeuten kann, sind seine Werke von hervorragender Qualität..."
7.  Has been called Gerrit Willem Horst, but now generally accepted as by Bol.