[Ian]

David and Kubur:

Museums of all types frequently make mistakes in attribution of works of art. Unless the provenance is strong, there is always room for doubt. Larger museums obviously have more research staff than smaller ones, so can presumably do more in the way of research and establishing provenance.

Here, for example, is what the Metropolitan Museum of Art provides for one of its three works attributed to Ferdinand Bol:

Petronella Elias (1648–1667) with a Basket of Fruit

Artist: Ferdinand Bol (Dutch, Dordrecht 1616–1680 Amsterdam)
Date: 1657
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 31 5/8 x 26 in. (80.3 x 66 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchase, George T. Delacorte Jr. Gift, 1957
Accession Number: 57.68

Bol was a pupil of Rembrandt in the late 1630s, and followed his teacher's style until the middle of the century. During the 1650s Bol became established in Amsterdam society, enjoyed considerable success as a portraitist and history painter, and adopted a more colorful, fluid, and Flemish style. The elaborate silver basket in the present picture appears again in a double portrait of 1661 in Antwerp.

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): FBol [initials in monogram] / 1657

Provenance:?Wigbold Slicher and his wife, Elisabeth Spiegel, the sitter's aunt, Amsterdam (until his d. 1718); ?their son, Antonis Slicher (1718–d. 1745); ?his son, Hieronymus Slicher (1745–d. 1755); his son, Wigbold Slicher, The Hague (1755–d. 1790; inv., 1783, no. 16); ?his widow, Dina Henriette Backer (1790–d. 1801); ?Slicher's eldest son, Jan Slicher, The Hague (1801–d. 1815); ?his unmarried sister, Anna Catharina Slicher (1815–d. 1827); Robert Ludgate, London (by 1834–at least 1835); the Bunbury family, Barton Hall, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk; [Scott & Fowles, New York]; Miss Mary Hanna, Cincinnati; [Knoedler, New York, in 1929]; Mrs. Joseph Heine, formerly Mrs. I. D. Levy, New York (until 1944; her sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, November 25, 1944, no. 261, for $7,000); Sydney J. Lamon, New York; [Knoedler, New York, until 1957; sold to MMA]

This provenance appears to track all the way back to the creation of the painting by Bol, but the museum is not entirely sure about the early attributions, so its staff inserted "?" marks to indicate less than complete documentation. Nevertheless, it looks a pretty solid provenance.

For the subject of this thread, all we have for provenance is that it was "a gift of Mr and Mrs Elton F. McDonald, 1962." The museum may have more information, but they did not include it online. To learn anything more about the painting would mean contacting the museum. In looking at a blow up of the online photograph, I can see no signature or date that might help in identifying the artist.

The works of Ferdinand Bol are considered "rare." He does not seem to have been especially prolific and his career ended in 1669 when he remarried after the death of his first wife. He has been lumped in the group of "students and followers of Rembrandt," of which there may have been many, and later in his career he seems to have adopted a more Flemish style and moved away from that of his master somewhat.

Lastly, this portrait does not show up on a collected list of his works here.

I would suggest that we simply do not know the authenticity of the subject of this thread in regard to its attribution to Bol. The supplied provenance is sketchy (to say the least), and we do not know to what extent it has been vetted by experts in Dutch masters. Given the confusion in recent decades about the attribution of works to Rembrandt himself, the work of the Rembrandt Research Program not withstanding, it becomes even harder to know what can be attributed to his students and followers.

For the purposes of the present discussion, however, let's just go with what the Dayton Art Museum says, with the caveat that they could be wrong.