Collection du professeur Enzinger, Autriche, selon le catalogue Koller ;

Vente anonyme ; Zurich, Koller, 5 octobre 2001, n° 3021 ;

Chez Richard Green, Londres, entre 2002 et 2004 ;

Galerie De Jonckheere, Paris ;

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par les parents des actuels propriétaires en 2006 ;

Collection particulière, France

Heinrich Gerhard Franz, “Beiträge zum Werk des Hans Bol”, Kunsthistorisches Jahrbuch Graz, 1979, XIV, p. 204, pl. I.XIII

W. Landewé, "Wouw en de ‘tekentafelkastelen’ van Hans Bol (1534-1593)", Het Brabants kasteel, jaargang 27, n° 3-2004, p. 65

Mirjam Neumeister (dir.), Holländische Gemälde im Städel 1550-1800: Band 1 : Künstler geboren bis 1615, Petersberg, 2005, p. 38

Catalogue de vente Londres, Sotheby’s, 7 juillet 2011, Old Master and British Drawings Including Property from the Descendants of Walter Brandt, sous le n° 10

Sylvie de Coster, "Vlijtich, net en met grooter patientie, Nieuwe aanwinst van Jacob I Savery in het Broelmuseum", Koninklijke Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Kring van Kortrijk, Handelingen, Nieuwe Reeks, Courtrai, 2012, p. 94

Painter, engraver and designer of models for prints, Hans Bol was born in Mechelen on 16 December 1534 to Symon Bol and Catharina van der Stock. According to Karel van Mander, who praises his canvases and gouaches, he was first taught by an ordinary painter in his hometown in the tradition of Mechelen watercolour painting before taking a two-year study trip to Heidelberg in Germany (1). In 1560, he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Mechelen and began a significant activity as an etcher, during which time he worked for the publishers Hieronymus Cock and Gerard de Jode. A Lutheran, he fled Mechelen and settled in Antwerp in 1572. There he married Anneken Gotthens, widow of Rombout Boels, whose son Frans Boels took up a career as a miniature painter after being trained by his stepfather. Hans Bol also took on Joris Hoefnagel and Jacob Savery I (between 1580 and 1584) as apprentices, both of whom became leading artists. In 1574, he was received into the city’s Guild of Saint Luke with his brother Jacob Bol, and then a citizen of Antwerp in 1575. From the 1580s until his death, he stopped producing watercolours and etchings and devoted himself to producing small landscapes in gouache, technically demanding and time-consuming works. Karel van Mander states that it was because of the copies of his watercolours on canvas that he had adopted the technique of miniatures done in gouache. Miniatures required delicate and time-consuming work, and he hoped to discourage copyists. Towards the end of his career, his style evolved towards a more fluid and graphic manner accompanied by tonal and luminous values ​​made possible by gouache. In 1584, he was forced to escape from Antwerp due to the entry of Spanish troops into the city. Passing through Bergen op Zoom, Dordrecht and Delft, he finally took refuge in Amsterdam in 1586 where he died in 1593.

In the 16th century, there were roughly 150 workshops in Mechelen, including masters of the painters’ guild and sculptors of small alabaster pieces and altarpieces (2). Throughout the 16th century, many artists and merchants lived near the Franciscan churches and cloisters in Katelijnestraat. This street united the administrative and commercial centre of the city (including the town hall and the Grote Markt behind Saint Rombout’s Cathedral) and then became a route leading to Antwerp, whose economic activity took over from that of Mechelen after the death of Margaret of Austria in 1530. Among these workshops was that of the Verhulst dynasty, to which Mayken Verhulst belonged, a painter of miniatures and watercolours on canvas, who became the wife of Pieter Coeke van Alst and the future stepmother of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Developing in this tradition of painting from his apprenticeship, Hans Bol specialized in the field of miniatures executed in gouache (3).

The parable of the rich man (Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, verses 15 to 16 – as recalled in gold letters at the bottom of the sheet) is illustrated here by this figure who keeps several purses full of gold and a large chest close. Around him, villagers are busy building a house, carrying goods or working in the fields. This religious scene is almost eclipsed, despite the angel depicted in the sky on the right, by the important panoramic landscape of Flemish inspiration, which extends over our vellum in blue tones. The Städel Museum in Frankfurt has a landscape with Jacob at the well signed and dated 1593 (inv. no. 1909, fig. 1). Painted in gouache on vellum and mounted on an oak wood, this work presents the same characteristics as our sheet. The same is true of another landscape depicting Judah and Tamar (Munich, Residenz, no. G0990, fig. 2).

In this work on vellum, Hans Bol offers us a unique composition based on elements that were familiar to him, such as the creatures he reproduced in great detail in his albums of animals. The parable of the rich man also appears on a preparatory drawing for the engraved series Emblemata Evangelica illustrating the month of June. As in the drawing, we can possibly recognise Brussels, with the slender spire of the town hall, although it seems that we are dealing with a generic city view. This gouache, like the next, was commissioned as a miniature for display in a "wunderkamer".

1.    Karel van Mander, Het schilder-boeck: Het leven van de doorluchtige Nederlandse en Hoogduitse schilder, Haarlem, 1603-4, fols 260r19-260v42.

2.    According to a contemporary source: Marcus van Vaernewijck in Den Spiegel der nederlantscher audheyt (Gand, 1568), fol. 135v-136r; as cited in Stefaan Hautekeete, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Hans Bol, Oudekerk aan den Ijssel, 2015, p. XXVII.

3.    In the œuvre of Hans Bol, we know of 66 original prints that Stefaan Hautekeete dates to around 1558 to 1580 as well as 266 prints done after his drawings. 165 freestanding sheets complete the group - done from nature, studies or finished drawings destined for sale. We know of six works on canvas and 105 of gouache on paper or vellum (often laid down on panel, as is the case with the present work), 3 albums containing 299 gouaches representing animals, birds and fish and an illuminated prayer book (1582) destined for Duke François d’Anjou. Unlike Pieter Brueghel, Joannes Stradanus or Maerten de Vos, who produced large painting in addition to their painted and engraved works, Bol kept essentially to small format works on paper or vellum (ink drawings, prints or gouaches). 

We are grateful to Stefaan Hautekeete for his help in writing this catalogue entry.