Portrait of Elisabeth Bas

Portrait of an Old Lady, Possibly Elisabeth Bas
Artist	Ferdinand Bol
Year	1640s
Medium	canvas, oil paint
Dimensions	118 cm (46 in) × 91.5 cm (36.0 in)
Location	Rijksmuseum, Netherlands
Owner	Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll
Accession no.	SK-A-714
Identifiers	RKDimages ID: 1882

Portrait of Elisabeth Bas is a portrait by Ferdinand Bol of the Dutch businesswoman Elisabeth Bas, commissioned by her granddaughter Maria Rey, from the 1640s. It is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, where it is known as Elisabeth Bas and attributed to Golden age of Dutch art painter Ferdinand Bol (1616 - 1680), though the identity of the sitter is held in doubt by the Rijksmuseum.

History and attribution

Until 1911 it was thought to be by Rembrandt, but that year the Rembrandt expert Abraham Bredius re-attributed it to Bol. Such a re-attribution was hotly contested by the collector and art historian Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1836-1930), but is now accepted. A brand of cigars was named after this painting in the 20th century, produced at a factory at Boxtel and using the painting as a logo, and their bands and the boxes for cigars of this brand are still collector's items. ^[1]

References

1. J. Bruyn, B. Haak, S.H. Levie, P.J.J. van Thiel, E. van de Wetering, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings: 1635–1642, 2013, p. 36