(Attributed to). Portrait of a Bearded Man, possibly Rabbi Isaac Aboab de Fonseca (1605-1693).

DE VRIES, ABRAHAM

Mid-17th Century

Oil on panel.

 Provenance: Sotheby's Monaco, Tableaux Anciens, 19th May 1987, lot 346 (as Simon Kick, 1603-52). It is suggested that this finely executed Dutch portrait depicts Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605-93). Aboab de Fonseca was one of the Netherland’s most esteemed rabbinic leaders. In 1639, Aboab was appointed Haham of Amsterdam, uniting all three Sephardic congregations under his authority. In 1642 he accepted a call to Recife (Pernambuco), Brazil, which was at the time in the hands of the Dutch. Thus, he became the first Rabbi to minister on the American Continent. However following the conquest of Brazil in 1654 by the Portuguese, Haham Aboab returned to Amsterdam. In 1656 he was one of the rabbinic elders who famously excommunicated Benedict Spinoza for heresy. Abraham de Vries (c. 1590–1649) was a Dutch painter, strongly influenced by Rembrandt, who rose to become one of the leading portraitists of his time.