Follower of Ferdinand Bol
The story
In Amsterdam in the late 1630s and the 1640s, pictures of single figures in turbans, furs and gold chains found ready buyers. Most of them were not portraits of anyone in particular. The Dutch called such pictures tronies, heads or characters, and Rembrandt's circle produced a great many, the young Ferdinand Bol among them. The manner was popular and not hard to imitate, and other painters took it up.
Follower of Ferdinand Bol is the label for a picture made by one of those painters, someone who worked in Bol's manner and whose own name has been lost. It makes no claim that the painter trained with Bol, and the work may date from Bol's lifetime or from later. Workshop of would place it in his studio, and copy after would tie it to one known original.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston uses this label for a large Young Man in Oriental Costume, which has been there since 1917.
