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BRAY,
Joseph de/ ARTISTS 1650-1899/ ART MAIN |
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Dutch
painter (d. 1664, Haarlem) |
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Dutch painter, son of Salomon
and brother of Joseph. Even before the death of Verspronck
in 1662 and the octogenarian Frans Hals in 1666, Jan de Bray
became the leading portraitist in Haarlem. In the
mid-sixties he received four commissions for life-size
collective portraits of governors from the city's charitable
institutions. Except for his first efforts in the early
fifties, little in his oeuvre recalls the old master, Frans
Hals. He often adopted the colourful palette and smooth,
limpid manner of van der Helst, qualities evident in his
historical portraits. His contact with Haarlem's
classicizing artists, particularly his father Salomon, who
was his teacher, made assimilation of these aspects of van
der Helst popular style an easy step. |
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Still-life
in Praise of the Pickled Herring
1656
Oil on oak, 57 x 48,5 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
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Fish still-lifes developed as
a category during the seventeenth century - not an
astonishing phenomenon when we recall that fishing,
particularly for herring and cod, was a mainstay of the
Dutch economy. A notable exponent of the type is Abraham van
Beyeren. As the Dutch love for flowers, their love for
seafood is proverbial. The Haarlemer Joseph de Bray, son of
Salomon and brother of Jan, celebrated this taste in his
picture, dated 1656, dedicated to the apotheosis of the
pickled herring.
Resting
behind the large, succulent herring and other objects in the
painting's foreground, there is an elaborate tablet, draped
with a festoon of herrings and requisite onions, inscribed
with a poem by the Remonstrant preacher and poet Jacob
Westerbaen: 'In praise of the Pickled Herring' published in
1633. After telling of the herring's delight to the eye,
palette, and its other qualities, Westerbaen adds that
consumption of it 'Will make you apt to piss/And you will
not fail/(With pardon) to shit/And ceaselessly fart...' -
proof, if it is needed, that plain profane messages are as
likely embodied in Dutch paintings as spiritual ones. The
painting was evidently a success. In the following year he
painted another, somewhat larger still-life, now in Aachen,
dedicated to the same subject. It includes the text of
Westerbaen's verse dedicated to the pickled herring, and a
brief passage from his poem 'Cupido' on the page of an open
folio accompanied by an ample display of herrings and
onions. |
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