watermark: elephant; cf. Heawood, no. 1334 (Amsterdam: 1792)

…; sale, Johann August Gottlieb Weigel (1773-1846, Leipzig), Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 8 (15) May 1883 sqq., no. 127, M 36;¹¹Copy RKD. …; collection Adalbert, Freiherr von Lanna (1836-1909), Prague (L. 2773); his sale, Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 6 May 1910, no. 117, RM 12, to ‘Moes’;²²According to copy Artaria, cf. https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/82248. ...; from the dealer J.H. Odink, Amsterdam, with 23 other drawings, fl. 1.497,51, to the museum (L. 2228), 1911

Object number: RP-T-1911-80

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

This is a copy after a drawing by Jan de Bray in the Morgan Library & Museum, New York (inv. no. 1999.18), which became known to a wider public only recently.³³J. Shoaf Turner, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, 2 vols., coll. cat. New York 2006, no. 43; J. Giltaij, Jan de Bray (1626/1627-1697). Schilder en architect, Zwolle 2017, no. T78. It follows the original in detail, including its signature and the date ‘1663’. Done on paper with an eighteenth-century watermark, it, however, must have been drawn about a century after the original.

The drawing in New York was made as a ricordo after a painting now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. os i-36).⁴⁴Ibid., no. 39; P. Biesboer et al. (eds.), Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 404, the drawing is still mentioned as lost. Its subject is taken from the Bible: against the protest of his disciples, Jesus welcomed the little children and blessed them.⁵⁵Matthew 19:13-16; Mark 10:14-16; Luke 18:15-17. Here, these children belong to De Bray’s cousin, the Haarlem physician Pieter Braems (c. 1620/21-1675), and his wife Emerantia van der Laen (c. 1621-1667). De Bray portrayed the couple while presenting their children to Jesus who is accompanied by St Peter, the patron saint of Pieter Braems, and another bearded man, probably the apostle Paul. When De Bray drew his ricordo, in 1663, the couple had three sons: Petrus (or Pieter), born circa 1651, Johan, born circa 1653, and Dirck, born circa 1656.⁶⁶The members of the family were first identified by Thierry de Bye Dólleman in 1961, based on the coats of arms decorating the painting’s frame; cf. M. Thierry de Bye Dólleman, ‘“Laat de kinderkes tot mij komen”’, Haerlem Jaerboek (1961), pp. 81, 84. A fourth son, Cornelis, born circa 1664, was later added to the painting by the artist himself, probably in 1665 or 1666, given the boy’s apparent age. Further changes were made to the painting by a different hand, altering the background from rusticated stonework into a pair of elegant, fluted columns, at the same time concealing the signature and date. This later hand also removed the presumed figure of St Paul while adding four male portraits, most likely regents of St James’ Orphanage to which the painting was bequeathed by Pieter Braems in 1674. These portraits appear to be copied after earlier sources.⁷⁷Cf. J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Kinderen op hun mooist. Het kinderportret in de Nederlanden, 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 2000-01, p. 260.

Another copy after the New York drawing, possibly by Wybrand Hendriks (1744-1831), was sold in 1971 in London.⁸⁸Sale, London (Sotheby’s), 18 November 1971, no. 99.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), p. 175; J.W. von Moltke, ‘Jan de Bray’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 11/12 (1938-39), pp. 466, under no. 18, 515, no. Fr. Z. 2 (as ‘De Bray?’); F. Schmidt Degener, Tentoonstelling bijbelsche kunst, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1939, no. 94 b; A. Pigler, ‘Gruppenbildnisse mit historisch verkleideten Figuren und ein Hauptwerk des Johannes van Noordt’, Acta Historiae Artium 2 (1955), pp. 173-74 (fig. 3); M. Thierry de Bye Dólleman, ‘“Laat de kinderkes tot mij komen”’, Haerlem Jaerboek (1961), pp. 81, 84; E. de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw. Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst in de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Halsmuseum) 1986, p. 326; P. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-century Holland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, p. 119; J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Kinderen op hun mooist. Het kinderportret in de Nederlanden, 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 2000-01, p. 258 (n. 1; entry by J.B. Bedaux); I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 404-05 (entry by W. van de Watering and K. Levy-Van Halm); J. Shoaf Turner, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, 2 vols., coll. cat. New York 2006, pp. 45-46, under no. 43; J. Giltaij, Jan de Bray (1626/1627-1697). Schilder en architect, Zwolle 2017, pp. 126-27, 288, 305, no. T78; R. Ekkart and C. van den Donk, Lief en leed. Realisme en fantasie in Nederlandse familiegroepen uit de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Enschede (Rijksmuseum Twenthe) 2018, p. 139

A. Stefes, 2019, 'anonymous, Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me, c. 1750 - c. 1780', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200120127