With Sulley & Co., London;
With Knoedler & Co., New York, July 1921;
Acquired from the above by Howard Young, New York, November , 1923;
With John Levy Galleries, New York and subsequently with Knoedler & Co., New York, March, 1949;
Acquired from the above by William Bass, April, 1949;
With Knoedler & Co., June, 1950 from whom acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Lauritz Melchior, Los Angeles, June, 1950;
Gifﷺt of Mr. and Mrs. Lauritz Melchior to the Los Angeles County Mus💖eum of Art, 1955 (acc. no. 55.28).

San Antonio, TX, Witte Memorial Museum, Paintings from the XVI to XIX Century from M. Knoedler & Co., October 26-November 7, 1949, cat. no. 2;
Dallas, TX, Dallas Musuem of Fine Arts, Four Centuries of European Painting, October 6-31, 1951, cat. no. 28;
Raleigh, N.C., North Carolina Museum of Art, Rembrandt and His Pupils, November 16-December 30, 1956, cat. no. 2;
La Jolla, CA, La Jolla Museum of Art, Dutch and Flemish Paintings of the Northern Renaissance, June 13-September 20, 1964, cat. no. 2 (with incorre♋ct provenance and exhibition references).

J.H.J. Mellaart, "Self Portraits by Bol," in The Burlington Magazine, 43, October 1923, pp. 153-154, reproduced plate IIC (as dated 1647);
D.S. Meldrum, Rembrandt's Paintings, London 1923, p. 86, footnote;
G. Isarlov, "Rembrandt et son Entourage," in La Renaissance, July/September 1936, p. 34 (as dated 1647);
A. Dobrzycka, "Autoportrety Ferdinanda Bola," in Biuletyn Historii Sztuki, 18, 1956, p. 427, reproduced plate 7 (as dated 1647);
W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt and his Pupils, exhibition catalogue, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh 1956, no. 2, reproduced;
R.F. Brown, "Recent Gifts of Painting," in Los Angeles County Museum Bulletin of the Art Division, 8, 1957, no. 4 (as dated 1643);
H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende kunstenaars, Amsterdam 1963, no. 8;
H. Richardson, "Bol's 'David's Dying charge to Solomon' in the National Gallery of Ireland", in Studies, vol. 67, no. 267, Autumn 1973, pp. 228-9, reproduced plate 9;
A. Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680), Rembrandt's Pupil, Doornspijk 1982, p. 119, cat. no. 63, reproduced plate 63;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der  Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau/Pfalz 1983, vol. I, p. 305, under cat. no. 135; vol. V, p. 3082, under cat. no. 2009;
P.C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America, Grand Rapids 1986, pp. 132, 332;
S. Schaefer et al, European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1987, p. 19, reproduced.
H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt's Self Portraits, Pr🉐ince𓆉ton 1990, p. 81, 157 n. 8, reproduced fig. 111.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is fairly freshly varnished yet the current restoration is not adequate. The varnish is a little milky in the darker colors beneath the chin and to the right side of the face particularly, and some of this blooming seems to also be present in the hair. In addition to this there are restorations visible under ultraviolet light in the background which are not conclusive, although some of them seem to be reasonably accurate; they are situated on the edges, particularly on the upper left and upper right, and in some thinness directly against the hair on the left and right side. In the red coat there are a few spots of thinness but this area does appear to be properly cleaned and the same can be said for the clothing. The letter being held by the sitter is very slightly thin and in the faces there are a handful of tiny dots which address small blemishes in the light colors. This picture should be reexamined and while it looks presentable as is, the quality and the condition of the picture is actually better than it looks to be at present. A careful and considered restoration should improve the picture greatly.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This imposing self portrait was painted by the thirty-two year old Ferdinand Bol in 1648. It is inspired to a great degree by Rembrandt's famous self portrait of 1640 in the National Gallery, London, in which Rembrandt shows himself half length, standing behind a parapet on which he rests his right arm.¹ Bol had made a careful study of this portrait  (Washington, National Gallery), probably while still a member of Rembrandt's workshop, which he left in 1642.² Rembrandt's self portrait inspired the portraiture of the vast majority of his pupils in the 1640s, both Govaert Flinck and Gebrand van der Eeckhout, for example, basing their own self portraits on it as had Bol.³

Bol painted several self portraits in the 1640s, all of them more or less based on Rembrandt's. In them all he is half length behind a parapet, turned in three-quarter pose to the left, and wears a gold-embroidered velvet cloak, a chain around his neck and a rakish beret. They are indeed all so similar that they have often been confused, the present work for example having been for a long time considered the portrait formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Newcastle and now in the Springfield Art Museum.⁴ An oval copy of the present lot was formerly in the Adolphe Schloss collection in Paris.⁵

Note on the Provenance
Until 1955, this painting was in the collection of the great opera singer Lauritz Melchior and his wife. Born in Denmark in 1890 Melchior gained American citizenship in 1947 and retired in 1955. He was the greatest Wagnerian tenor of the first half of the 20th century and he has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type. Although he performed at all the major venues in the western world, including Covent Garden, he is best remembered for his time at the Metropolitan Opera where he sang 519 performances. He died in Santa Monica in 1973.

1. See W.R. Valentiner, Klassiker der Kunst. Rembrandts Gemalde, Stuttgart/Leipzig 1909, reproduced p. 242.
2. See A.I. Davies, 16th an 17th century Dutch and Flemish Paintings in the Springfield Museum of Arts, Springfield MA. 1993, reproduced p. 27, fig. 2c.
3. The Flinck sold London, Sotheby's, 11 December 1985, lot 62 and the Eeckhout drawing is in the Fondation Custodia, Paris (inv. no. 854a). 
4. Blankert, op. cit., cat. no. 64, reproduced plate 65.
5. Ibid., cat. no. 63a, reproduced plate 64.