DIRCK DE BRAY | STILL LIFE OF A BASKET OF FLOWERS ON A LARGE MARBLE LEDGE

With John Mitchell & Sons, London, by 1995;

Anonymous sale ("The Property of an English Private Collector"), New York, Christie's, 31 January 1997, lot 47;

There acquired for $140,000.

R. Gibson, Flower Painting, Oxford 1976, p. 9, reproduced fig. 15;

F.G. Meijer, "Joseph and Dirck de Bray, Painters of still lifes," in Painting Family: The De Brays, Masters of 17th Century Holland, exhibition catalogue, Haarlem and London 2008, p. 31, reproduced fig. 27 (as Dirck de Bray [and Joseph de Bray?]).

This beautiful signed and dated panel is the earliest known work by Dirck de Bray and one of only seven known pure flower pieces by the artist. He was born into an important family of Dutch artists, headed by his father, Salomon, and including his two brothers, Jan and Joseph.  This work predates by several years Dirck’s other flower still lifes, which were painted in the 1670s and 1680s, by several years. The early dating of this painting and its close stylistic affinity with the works of his brother Joseph, who died in 1664 of the plague, has led Fred Meijer (see Literature) to surmise that Dirck may have completed an unfinished painting by his deceased brother. Meijer suggests that the DBray signature may have been adapted from his brother’s earlier signature: Josepho.