Young Man in a Plumed Beret

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.]