Salomon de Bray
(1597 - 1664) |
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Historical Narratives, Secular narritives, landscapes Art Work
| Name: |
Salomon de Bray |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Amsterdam |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1597 |
| Death: |
1664 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Historical Narratives, Secular narritives, landscapes |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
Architect
Poet |
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Biography
| One of the principal history painters in Haarlem, de Bray was a talented, versatile figure who was gifted in a variety of mediums. Besides being a poet, he was a practicing architect and town planner and wrote books on those subjects. His activities as a painter are equally diverse in both style and subject matter. De Bray responded to a broad range of influences with enthusiasm and originality; he painted many subjects, including histories, figure paintings, landscapes, portraits, and occasionally architectural scenes and decorative embellishments. He also founded a family of artists that included his painter sons - Dirck, Jan, and Joseph. Born to Flemish immigrants residing in Amsterdam, Salomon moved to Haarlem at an early age. He began as a pupil of Hendrick Goltzius* and Cornells van Haarlem. By 1615 Salomon had joined the St. Adrian guard company in Haarlem and two years later he also belonged to the Society of Rhetoricians. Salomon married in 1625 and had at least ten children. In 1630 he was a member of the board charged with reorganizing the Haarlem St. Luke Guild, a project that also involved Cornelis van Haarlem, Pieter de Molijn,* and Willem Claesz Heda.* Salomon helped spearhead the project. Between 1633 and 1640 Salomon also served on the guild's board. Among his important commissions was the work executed between 1648 and 1652 on the Oranjezaal in the Huis ten Bosch in the Hague. Chosen by Jacob van Campen to contribute to the project, Salomon provided two sections of the triumphal arch and a grisaille decoration with nude putti holding a fictive scroll emblazoned with Prince Frederik Hendrik's name. Salomon's reputation was such that in 1663 a notable Frenchman, Balthasar de Monconys (who had also gone to see Vermeer* in Delft), stopped to see Salomon and aquired a painting of Hermaphroditus from him. By that time a plague had broken out in Haarlem, and Salomon's wife died in August 1663; four children died in 1664, the same year that Salomon himself succumbed. De Bray's artistic sources were many, and the development of his career is still not entirely clear. His early works seem to reflect the influence of his teachers, while his first mature images, such as the charming Girl in a Straw Hat (signed and dated 1635, formerly Dresden, GemSIdegalerie Alte Meister, destroyed in WWII, and one of his acknowleged masterworks), show his own energetic interpretation of the style and pastoral half-length subject matter associated with the Utrecht Caravaggisti in the 1620s. By 1640 Rembrandt's* lighting had a decided influence on certain works, but Salomon also reacted to the more polished, classicizing decorative style of the Flemings (notably Jacob Jordaens) aad de Bray's fellow townsman Pieter de Grebber,* which he must have felt was more suitable for such painted decorations as the Huis ten Bosch. Some of Salomon's later paintings, such as Rebecca at the Well (signed and dated 1660, Douai, Musee de Douai), hark back in the minds of some scholars to painters like Pieter Lastman. De Bray had a long and successful career, though, strangely enough, Dutch museums do not preserve large numbers of his paintings. |
Samples of Work
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