Description:
Woman holding pear
Label Text:
Ferdinand Bol most likely did not start printmaking until he became Rembrandt’s pupil in the 1630ties in Amsterdam, since Rembrandt’s loose sketchy style is evident in this etching by Ferdinand Bol titled Woman holding a pear. Its composition has clearly been subject to the influence of another Rembrandt pupil, Gerard Dou, whose trademark was the doorsien or niche painting with its illusionistic window framing.
This illusionistic window frame composition had become quite popular on the 17th century art market and many Dutch genre and portrait painters started using similar “tromp l’oeil” devices. The reason for the popularity of this composition might have been due to the fact that the niche created an intimate atmosphere that could function as a conduit between the outside and inside world. The open window would allow the viewer to peek beyond the hidden domestic threshold, which gave it a certain voyeuristic appeal, while the niche simultaneously functioned as a frame to the work.
However, in contrast to the finely oil painted niches by Gerard Dou which were the perfect instrument for an artist eager to demonstrate his paintings skill by introducing a variety of objects with different textures and shapes; in the case of the etched Woman holding a pear it is solely the presence of the woman that lures us in. While leaning forward out of her window, her voluptuous bosom stands out even more while mirroring the pear she is holding in her hand. Her heavy lidded gaze is clearly directed towards the viewer, the shading of the area around the woman’s eyes seems also quite deliberate and by obscuring our interior view by closing one shutter and leaving the rest dark, Bol creates a mysterious atmosphere.
The symbolic meaning of a female holding fruit in this context, is not difficult to deduct, fertility and fecundity come to mind with a strong reference to the offering of the forbidden fruit by Eve. The Dutch emblem books by Jacob Cats with its moralizing instructions for a proper Calvinist lifestyle did take the fruit symbolism a step further and forewarned the male suitor to pick his own fruit carefully and reject the fruit that is offered to him; being thereby a testament of female modesty and male discrimination and restrained. It does leave us to speculate about the woman in the window, the purity of her motivations and the true nature of her profession. HKDV
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1992.25.29 |
