Young Man in a Plumed Beret
- Date
- c 1649
- Object type
- painting
- Technique
- oil
- Material
- wood
- Dimensions
- 71,1 x 55,8 cm
- Acquisition date
- 1783
- Location
- The Palace on the Isle - Picture Gallery, ground floor
- Marks and inscriptions
- red number 702 of the Stanisław August collection, bottom left
- Place of Origin
- The Hague (Netherlands)
- Owner
- The Royal Łazienki
- Museum number
- ŁKr 817
In the catalogues of the Stanisław August collection the painting was recorded as being the work of an artist from the circle of Rembrandt. … In the 1967 catalogue of the National Museum of Warsaw the painting was published as by Bol, with a question mark.
The attribution to Bol was rejected by Albert Blankert in his monograph of the artist (1982). Blankert proposed the attribution to Pieter Verelst—or after Verelst—based on the affinities of the Łazienki Young Man in a Plumed Beret with Verelst’s Young Man with a Large Pearl on His Chest signed and dated 1646, once in the J. Leger & Son gallery in London (panel, 64 x 45 cm), a version of which (or the same painting) was exhibited in the Newhouse Galleries in New York in 1930 … .
A close analogy to the image of the young man under discussion and works by Verelst mentioned above are the so-called ‘self-portraits’ by Ferdinand Bol. In the years 1646– c. 1650 the artist painted a whole group of likenesses of young men similar to one another inspired by Rembrandt’s self-portrait, made in 1639 in etching … and in oils in 1640 (National Gallery in London); they repeat the same type of head and shoulders, historicizing costume, fanciful beret, rich chain and medallion … . They are tronies, and therefore not portraits of a specific person, but imagined likenesses of certain characters—in this case ‘artists’. Verelst’s Young Man discussed here belongs to the same group. … [D. Juszczak, H. Małachowicz, The Stanisław August Collection of Paintings at the Royal Łazienki. Catalogue, Royal Łazienki Museum, Warsaw 2016, no. 108, pp. 395–397.]