The calm Fabricius in the army camp of Pyrrhus

This 1655 Calm Fabricius in the Army Camp of Pyrrhus at the Amsterdam Museum depicts the Roman general Caius Fabricius Luscinus refusing Pyrrhus's attempt to intimidate him with a war elephant—a famous episode of Roman incorruptibility and composure under psychological pressure. The story from Plutarch contrasts Fabricius's unimpressed calm with Pyrrhus's expectation that the elephant would terrify the Roman ambassador into compliance. Amsterdam's civic collection placed such Roman virtue narratives in dialogue with Dutch republican self-understanding: the small republic resisting the pressure of great powers through moral steadfastness. Bol's history paintings for Amsterdam's civic institutions demonstrate his ambitions beyond the portrait market.

The dramatic confrontation is rendered with bold composition and warm coloring, Bol's treatment of the classical narrative combining Rembrandtesque figure painting with the elevated subject matter of history painting.