Ferdinand Bol

Ferdinand Bol was one of Rembrandt's most successful pupils, and for a while his pictures sit so close to the master's warm shadow and golden light that scholars have moved works back and forth between the two names. He studied in Rembrandt's Amsterdam studio in the late 1630s and then set up on his own.

Bol prospered where his teacher struggled. He became a fashionable Amsterdam portraitist and won prestigious public commissions, big group portraits of militia companies and governors, and grand history pieces for the new town hall. Over time his style lightened and grew more elegant, moving with the fashion away from Rembrandt's gloom.

In 1669, the year Rembrandt died more or less broke, Bol married a wealthy widow, and after that he seems to have set down his brushes for good, living comfortably for another decade.