ATTRIBUTED TO FERDINAND BOL | PYRAMUS AND THISBE

With its rapid, angular pen strokes, great sense of drama, and use of iron gall ink, this dynamic study is totally typical of the works being produced by Rembrandt and his leading pupils in the mid to late 1630s. In communications with the present owner from 2018, Peter Schatborn has pointed out similarities with drawings by Ferdinand Bol, such as the Study for the Shunammite Woman before Elisha, in the Rijksmuseum¹, and a drawing of Hannah and Eli, in Oslo.² Another drawing of the same subject, in which the disposition of the figures is very similar to that seen here, is in Berlin, and has most recently been catalogued by Holm Bevers as 'Circle/Style of Ferdinand Bol.³

1. Inv. no. RP-T-1930-14; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. I, New York 1979, no. 159^x 

2. Sumowski, op. cit., no. 177^x

3.  Inv. KdZ 2693; H. Bevers, Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin 2018, pp. 56-58, no. 26