BRAMER, Leonaert

This comparatively large drawing is part of a series of fifty illustrating Livy’s epic history of Rome, “Ab urbe condita”. The series has been preserved intact along with a table of contents compiled by Bramer himself. The scene depicting Aeneas fleeing Troy with his father, Anchises, and his son, Ascanius, is the first drawing in the series.

This panel depicts the twelve-year-old Jesus sitting among the learned doctors of the Temple in Jerusalem, disputing questions of theology (Luke 2:41-51). Many of Bramer’s works dating from about 1640 onward feature figures larger in scale than those in his earlier works. This may reflect his activity as a muralist at the court, and the influence of Gerard van Honthorst and other Caravaggesque painters, including their Delft adherents Willem van Vliet and Christiaen Couwenbergh.

On this sheet Bramer sketched two studies for ceiling paintings in the tradition of Correggio. On the recto fifteen angel sing and play musical instruments and five putti surround a cloud. The composition on the verso is more complicated. In the centre, three bands of angels recede toward a distant burst of heavenly light. The lower level of clouds is occupied by elderly men with large books who must be the four Latin fathers of the Church: Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome, who is identified by a lion.

Bramer is known to have decorated several ceilings, however, few of them have survived.

On this sheet Bramer sketched two studies for ceiling paintings in the tradition of Correggio. On the recto fifteen angel sing and play musical instruments and five putti surround a cloud. The composition on the verso is more complicated. In the centre, three bands of angels recede toward a distant burst of heavenly light. The lower level of clouds is occupied by elderly men with large books who must be the four Latin fathers of the Church: Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome, who is identified by a lion.

Bramer is known to have decorated several ceilings, however, few of them have survived.

This drawing is a design for a dish produced at the Delftware kiln. It is pricked for transfer.

This drawing comes from a series of at least fifty-five Old Testament scenes, called the Gutekunst series after their previous owner, an art dealer in Bern. Some of the scenes from the series are known to have served as models for decoration on Delftware.

This panel is one of the hundreds of night scenes which Bramer, one of the most successful artists in Delft, produced. The Magi, led by torch-bearing angels, have evidently just arrived at their destination, or are close enough to dismount. Considering that Bramer painted a considerable amount of pendant pictures, it has been suggested that the manger was depicted in a pendant panel representing the Adoration of the Shepherds.

This comparatively large drawing is part of a series of fifty illustrating Livy’s epic history of Rome, “Ab urbe condita”. The series has been preserved intact along with a table of contents compiled by Bramer himself.

Marcus Curtius was appreciated in the seventeenth century as the very model of a hero who dies for his fatherland. To fulfil an oracle’s prediction and save the Roman republic he leapt on horseback into a flaming chasm.

This drawing represents a scene (no. 8) from Francisco Quevedo’s Spanish Dreams.

This drawing (on several pieces of paper joined) represents musicians playing stringed instruments. The other side of the sheet contains a drawing which depicts musicians in a loggia.

Bramer is best known for his treatment of historical subjects, but he also dabbled in genre scenes both as a draftsman and as a painter.

This canvas, the largest known work by Bramer, is probably the only surviving example of his celebrated activity as a decorative muralist. Musical ensembles were a common subject in Italian palace decoration with which Bramer had become familiar during his stay in Italy in the 1620s. By 1622 Gerard van Honthorst had brought the genre to the Netherlands.

It is assumed that during his stay in Rome, Bramer worked for the illusionistic muralist Agostino Tassi. Some small pictures painted by Bramer in Italy, in particular stormy seascapes, are so similar to examples by Tassi that their attribution have gone back and forth. The Roman artist’s influence is obvious even in more distinctive works by Bramer dating from the 1620s.

This drawing represents a scene (no. 11) from Francisco Quevedo’s Spanish Dreams.

This drawing represents a scene (no. 10) from Francisco Quevedo’s Spanish Dreams.

This theatrical composition seems to be set on a stage.

You can view other depictions of Salome with the Head of John the Baptist.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 15 minutes):

Richard Strauss: Salome, closing scene

This late drawing by Bramer illustrate an episode from Metamorphoses by Ovid. It depicts the scene Perseus, with the Head of Medusa, Turns Phineus to Stone.

The Metamorphoses was enormously popular in the Netherlands during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bramer made two series of drawings devoted to Ovidian subjects, one with brush and black ink in about 1635-45, and one with colour in the 1660s.

This late drawing by Bramer illustrate an episode from Metamorphoses by Ovid. It depicts the scene Deucalion and Pyrrha after the Flood.

The Metamorphoses was enormously popular in the Netherlands during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bramer made two series of drawings devoted to Ovidian subjects, one with brush and black ink in about 1635-45, and one with colour in the 1660s.

This drawing belongs to a series of 48 drawings, recto and verso, on 24 sheets of vellum bound in an album. This series is the only one by Bramer still in its original binding. From old descriptions and fragments it is clear that several other series of drawings by the artist were bound. Although devoted to coherent themes, the collections were usually broken up so that the drawings could be sold separately.

This drawing belongs to a series of 48 drawings, recto and verso, on 24 sheets of vellum bound in an album. This series is the only one by Bramer still in its original binding. From old descriptions and fragments it is clear that several other series of drawings by the artist were bound. Although devoted to coherent themes, the collections were usually broken up so that the drawings could be sold separately.

This drawing, together with another of the same dimensions in the D�sseldorf museum, may be a design for the exterior of a perspective box, an object flourished in Holland during the 1650s and 1660s.

Bramer is best remembered today for his small nocturnal scenes illuminated by phosphorescent colours and streaks of light. His contemporaries considered him an outstanding wall painter and, he was one of the artists commissioned by Frederik Hendrik to help decorate his hunting lodge at Honselaarsdijk, and he also received several other important commissions. Bramer was one of the few seventeenth-century Dutch artists who painted frescoes in Holland; none have survived the Dutch climate.

Bramer’s name has been invoked in connection with Rembrandt’s early phase. The question of whether Bramer’s early night scenes influenced Rembrandt, or if Rembrandt inspired Bramer’s late works, is best answered negatively. The resemblance between their works is superficial. It is safe to say both artists arrived at their results independently.

This drawing (on five pieces of paper joined) represents six people gathered before a house in the classicising style of the mid-seventeenth century. The man on the left points out an oversized keyhole to the provocatively attired woman next to him. A similarly dressed woman and a man in fashionable clothing spy through the aperture, which is an actual hole in the centre of the paper.

This drawing, together with another of the same dimensions in the D�sseldorf museum, may be a design for the exterior of a perspective box, an object flourished in Holland during the 1650s and 1660s.

The painting is dated on the cartouche at the upper left. The inscription, read as 1623, confirms it as the first work known to have been painted by Bramer in Rome. The painting shows the influence of Adam Elsheimer, to whom it was formerly attributed.

This painting, now in poor condition, was inspired by Rubens’s Judgment of Solomon, which was known from several versions and from Boetius Bolswert’s engraving. The original painting was executed by Rubens in 1615-17 for the Town Hall of Brussels; it burned in 1695.

During the seventeenth century, courtrooms and similar chambers in the town halls of the Netherlands were usually decorated with images of justice, the most common subject having been the Judgment of Solomon. However, Bramer’s comparatively small painting was intended for private collectors.

In the centre of the painting are the duplicitous mother and a swordsman dangling the live baby by one foot. The executioner’s pose recalls that of the Dioscuri, or Horse Tamers, one of the most admired ancient sculptural groups in Rome.

The Sacrifice of Iphigenia and its pendant The Quarrel between Ajax and Odysseus are among the few paintings known to have been executed by Bramer in Rome.

The Sacrifice of Iphigenia and its pendant The Quarrel between Ajax and Odysseus are among the few paintings known to have been executed by Bramer in Rome.

This high quality drawing is a design for a Delftware plaque.

This drawing comes from a series of at least fifty-five Old Testament scenes, called the Gutekunst series after their previous owner, an art dealer in Bern. Some of the scenes from the series are known to have served as models for decoration on Delftware.