watermark: none visible through lining

...; ? sale, Isaac Walraven (1686-1765, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (H. de Winter et al.), 14 October 1765 sqq., Album N, no. 804 (‘Een fraaje Vrouwe Tronie met hangende Hair, zynde een Borststuk, uytvoerig met rood en zwart Kryt geteekend’), fl. 18;¹¹Copy RKD …; ? sale, Hendrik van Eyl Sluyter (1739-1814, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 26 September 1814 sqq., Album G, no. 14 (‘Een jong Meisje in deftige Kleeding. Uitvoerig met zwaart en rood krijt, door J. De Bray’), fl. 70, to ‘de Vries’;²²Copy RKD; this entry, however, could also refer to one of the other girls’ portraits mentioned in the text. ...; sale, Jacob de Vos Jacobsz (1803-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 80, fl. 61, to the dealer H.J. Balfoort for the Vereniging Rembrandt, from whom, to the museum (L. 2228), 1883

Object number: RP-T-1883-A-275

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

This charming drawing of a young girl belongs to a group of black-and-red-chalk portraits of girls, one preserved in the Lugt collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris (inv. no. 6013)³³J. Giltaij, Jan de Bray (1626/1627-1697). Schilder en architect, Zwolle 2017, no. T54. and two in the British Museum, London (inv. nos. 1856,0712.16 and 1895,0915.1129).⁴⁴Ibid., nos. T56 and T57. Done in a sensitive, minute manner, these finished drawings bear Jan de Bray’s signature and are dated 1663.

According to Giltaij, the signature and date on the present sheet were probably added by another hand: the ‘D’ features a swirl generally absent in Jan’s authentic signature, and the date is written more cautiously than in the other drawings.⁵⁵Ibid., p. 282. This inscription probably replicates an autograph signature that might have been lost when the sheet was trimmed, suggesting that it was originally larger.

The sitter in the drawing has not been identified, in contrast to the girls in the two London drawings.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

E.W. Moes, Oude teekeningen van de Hollandsche en Vlaamsche school in het Rijksprentenkabinet te Amsterdam, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904-06, I or II (0000), no. 18; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, IV (1910), p. 555 (entry by E.W. Moes); A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, III (1911), p. 39; J.W. von Moltke, ‘Jan de Bray’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 11/12 (1938-39), pp. 421-523, no. Z 119; H.E. van Gelder, Holland by Dutch Artists in Paintings, Drawings, Woodcuts, Engravings and Etchings, Amsterdam 1959, pp. 39, 96 (fig. 120); P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 133; J. Giltaij, Jan de Bray (1626/1627-1697). Schilder en architect, Zwolle 2017, pp. 45, 281-82, no. T55

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Jan de Bray, Portrait of a Girl, Haarlem, 1663', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200119012