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Author's biography |
Dutch painter, son of Salomon and brother of Joseph and Dirck. He spent virtually the whole of his career in Haarlem, except for the period 1686?, when he lived in Amsterdam. After training with his father, Jan began working as a portrait painter in Haarlem in 1650, an activity he continued for the next 40 years. Even before the death of Verspronc> in 1662 and the octogenarian Frans Hal> 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 historiated 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>Between 1667 and 1684 he served on the committee for the Haarlem Guild of St Luke, whose leading members he portrayed in a picture dated 1675 (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) that includes a self-portrait. He married three times, in 1668, 1670 and 1672. His first two wives died a year after their marriage, his third two years afterwards, and in each case the death was followed by disputes over the inheritance. Jan抯 bankruptcy of 1689 may have been a result of one of the lawsuits. He was 62 at the time, and from then onwards he seems to have lost his artistic drive, crushed by the financial blow and the consequent loss of social position. |
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