Images(3)

Maria Bockenolle (Wife of Johannes Elison)

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669)

1634

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

Dimensions174.9 x 124.1 cm (68 7/8 x 48 7/8 in.)

Credit LineWilliam K. Richardson Fund

Accession number56.511

On View

On view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

Maria Bockenolle was Dutch but lived in England; here she is dressed according to English fashion. Her broad-brimmed hat, more typically worn by men, is lined with expensive fur, probably imported from the Americas. While her husband (Reverend Johannes Elison, MFA accession number 56.510) is surrounded by books and papers that emphasize his learning, Bockenolle sits simply before a green curtain. Paintings of this scale were themselves a sign of wealth and must have been the focal points of a very imposing room in a grand house.

InscriptionsLower right: Rembrandt f 1634Provenance1634, commissioned by Johannes Elison the Younger (b. 1606 - d. 1677), Amsterdam; by inheritance to his sister, Ann Elison Dover (b. 1614 - d. 1681) and her husband, Daniel Dover (b. 1619 - d. 1702), Ludham, Norfolk, England; by descent through their daughter, Mary Dover Colby (b. 1649 - d. 1718) to the Colby family, Yarmouth, England; Rev. Samuel Colby (b. 1781 - d. 1860), Little Ellingham Rectory, Norfolk, England [see note 1]; June 30, 1860, posthumous Colby sale, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, lots 22 and 23, sold for 1850 gns. to Fisher (dealer), London [see note 2]; 1863, sold by Fisher to Eugène Schneider (b. 1805 - d. 1875), Paris [see note 3]; April 6, 1876, Schneider sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lots 29 and 30, bought in and sold by the estate to Schneider's son, Henri Schneider (b. 1840 - d. 1898), Paris; by descent within the family and, by 1956, sold by the Schneider family, Paris, to Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York [see note 4]; 1956, sold by Rosenberg and Stiebel to the MFA for $360,000 [see note 5]. (Accession Date: October 11, 1956)

NOTES:
[1] An English-language summary of the history of the portraits of Rev. Johannes Elison (b. about 1581 - d. 1639) and his wife, Maria Bockenolle (b. about 1590 - d. 1652), MFA accession nos. 56.510 and 56.511, can be found in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings (Dordrecht, 1986), vol. 2, cat. A98, pp. 532-540 (with additional bibliography). They were commissioned by the sitters' son, Johannes Elison the Younger, in 1634, and were bequeathed by him to his siblings. The two portraits were recorded in Yarmouth as early as 1763 by Horace Walpole (see Anecdotes of Painting in England, London, 1828, p. 5), and specifically in the Colby collection by Sylas Neville; see The Diary of Sylas Neville: 1767-1788, ed. Basil Cozens-Hardy (London, 1950), pp. 176-177, entry for August 26, 1772. The provenance was first published in the 1860 Colby sale catalogue.

[2] See the Art Journal (London), August 1860, p. 247.

[3] On Schneider's acquisition of the portraits, see W. B., "Deux portraits innommés de Rembrandt," Révue Universelle des Arts 18 (1863): pp. 357-358, according to which Schneider purchased them in England. C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1916), vol. 6, p. 310, cat. no. 645, states specifically that Fisher sold them to Schneider in 1863.

[4] According to a letter from Saemy Rosenberg to Thomas Maytham of the MFA (October 24, 1956). Henri's son, Eugène Schneider (b. 1868 - d. 1942), lent the pair to the Exhibition of Dutch Art, 1450-1900 (Royal Academy of Arts, London, January 4 - March 9, 1929), cat. nos. 83-84.

[5] The portraits of Rev. Elison and his wife were sold together for this price.