# Petronella Elias with a Basket of Fruit [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BOL, Ferdinand]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 80 x 66 cm ## Commentary The nine-year-old Petronella was the daughter of the merchant Joost Pietersz Elias, and his first wife, Rebecca Spiegel, who was a first cousin of Bol's wife, Elisabeth Dell. Basket of fruit often features in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art as allusion to fertility which explain their appearance in painting of children, as in <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/d/delff/jacob1/youngboy.html'\)" href="/html/d/delff/jacob1/youngboy.html">Jacob Willemsz Delff's portrait</a> of a two-year-old boy. The motif of fruit suggests that the child is the product of a fruitful marriage. Flowers, like the garland in Petronella's hair, suggest the innocence of youth. ## Related artworks - [A Scholar at his Desk]() - [Bacchus and Ariadne]() - [Elijah Fed by an Angel]() - [Governors of the Wine Merchant's Guild]() - [Jacob's Dream]() - [Lady with Pearls in her Hair]() - [Portrait of a Lady]() - [Portrait of a Man, Holding a White Plume]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [Portrait of a Scholar]() - [Portrait of a Woman]() - [Portrait of Admiral Michiel Adriaensz. de Ruyter]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()