Woman with a Pear

Ferdinand Bol was a Dutch painter of historical and religious subjects, active in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. He trained in Rembrandt's workshop and developed a distinctive approach to narrative painting that combined dramatic light effects with carefully composed figural groups. Bol's large-scale canvases, executed in oil on canvas, were commissioned for civic and ecclesiastical settings throughout the Dutch Republic. His work bridges the formal restraint of earlier Dutch history painting and the baroque theatricality of his contemporaries.

Dordrecht, Netherlands