Dirck de Bray
Flowers in a Glass Vase1671

On view:

Geffen Galleries

No image

Artist or Maker: Dirck de Bray
Northern Netherlands, circa 1635-1694
Title: Flowers in a Glass Vase
Date Made: 1671
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Dimensions: Panel: 19 × 14 3/8 in. (48.26 × 36.51 cm) Framed: 25 × 20 1/2 × 2 in. (63.5 × 52.07 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter
Accession Number: M.2009.106.4
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: In Dirck de Bray’s still life, the single ray of light, narrowly framed table, and deep black background rivet the viewer’s attention on the glass vase holding a bouquet of wilting flowers. While Dutch floral paintings often featured assemblages of elaborate exotic specimens that showcased the global reach of the Dutch colonial empire, de Bray’s selection is native to the Netherlands: red marigold, blue morning glory, poppy, white tree mallow, China rose, and hollyhock. All bloom in late summer, and here the season is confirmed by the inclusion of a crane fly, which is active from August to October. Whether Flowers in a Glass Vase was painted from life or with the illusion of being so (technical analysis suggests the artist made multiple changes to the flowers as he worked), it exudes a compelling immediacy and verism. Absent an explicitly moralizing message, the painting remains ambiguous—is it an image about the transience of life and the fleeting nature of beauty, or a celebration of the ordinary and observable?

Born into a family of artists, de Bray trained in bookbinding and printmaking, although by the 1670s he was a known painter. Scholars speculate that the career shift was prompted by the 1663−64 plague, which killed his parents and multiple siblings except for his brother, the painter Jan de Bray (c. 1627−1688). There are only seven floral still lifes associated with Dirck de Bray, several of which also feature seasonal flowers. A devout Catholic, he moved to the Gaesdonck monastery as a lay brother in 1678 and remained there the rest of his life.
Provenance: Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby’s, 25 Feb. 1948, lot 92, as dated 1673, ill.; sold for ￡2,100 to); P. T. Kroyer.(1) Anonymous (sale, London, Christie’s, 9 Apr. 1954, lot 2, as dated 1673; bought in and later sold to);(2) [C. Duits, London, no. 383, owned with Hallsborough Gallery, London, sold 1954 to]; Sidney James van den Bergh (1898–1977),(3) Wassenaar, sold 1973 through; [G. Cramer, The Hague, to]; Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter, Los Angeles, given 2009 to; LACMA.
Footnotes
(1) According to the printed record of the results of the sale. The name is variously recorded: the entry in the sale catalogue itself is annotated "2100 Kruyer." An unidentified article about the results of the sale attached to a copy of the sale catalogue at the Getty Research Institute presumably misspelled the name of the buyer as "Krager." Haarlem-London 2008, no. 45, p. 151, identifies the buyer as P. E. Kruyer.
(2) According to an annotated photo mount from Douwes now at the Getty Research Institute.
(3) Sidney James van den Bergh was a major collector of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. He was a senior manager of Unilever and served as minister of defense for the Netherlands in 1959. A. B. de Vries 1964 and A. B. de Vries et. al. 1968.
Selected Bibliography: Walsh, Jr., John., and Cynthis P. Schneider. A Mirror of Nature: Dutch Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter (Second Edition). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992.
King, Jennifer, ed. Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2020.
Walsh, Amy L. The Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carter Collection of Dutch Paintings. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019. https://archive.org/details/Carter_Collection_Dutch_Paintings (accessed May 23, 2022).
Esguerra, Clarissa, and Michaela Hansen. Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2022.

Related Unframed

Dirck de Bray
Flowers in a Glass Vase1671

On view:

Geffen Galleries

No image

Artist or Maker: Dirck de Bray
Northern Netherlands, circa 1635-1694
Title: Flowers in a Glass Vase
Date Made: 1671
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Dimensions: Panel: 19 × 14 3/8 in. (48.26 × 36.51 cm) Framed: 25 × 20 1/2 × 2 in. (63.5 × 52.07 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter
Accession Number: M.2009.106.4
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: In Dirck de Bray’s still life, the single ray of light, narrowly framed table, and deep black background rivet the viewer’s attention on the glass vase holding a bouquet of wilting flowers. While Dutch floral paintings often featured assemblages of elaborate exotic specimens that showcased the global reach of the Dutch colonial empire, de Bray’s selection is native to the Netherlands: red marigold, blue morning glory, poppy, white tree mallow, China rose, and hollyhock. All bloom in late summer, and here the season is confirmed by the inclusion of a crane fly, which is active from August to October. Whether Flowers in a Glass Vase was painted from life or with the illusion of being so (technical analysis suggests the artist made multiple changes to the flowers as he worked), it exudes a compelling immediacy and verism. Absent an explicitly moralizing message, the painting remains ambiguous—is it an image about the transience of life and the fleeting nature of beauty, or a celebration of the ordinary and observable?

Born into a family of artists, de Bray trained in bookbinding and printmaking, although by the 1670s he was a known painter. Scholars speculate that the career shift was prompted by the 1663−64 plague, which killed his parents and multiple siblings except for his brother, the painter Jan de Bray (c. 1627−1688). There are only seven floral still lifes associated with Dirck de Bray, several of which also feature seasonal flowers. A devout Catholic, he moved to the Gaesdonck monastery as a lay brother in 1678 and remained there the rest of his life.
Provenance: Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby’s, 25 Feb. 1948, lot 92, as dated 1673, ill.; sold for ￡2,100 to); P. T. Kroyer.(1) Anonymous (sale, London, Christie’s, 9 Apr. 1954, lot 2, as dated 1673; bought in and later sold to);(2) [C. Duits, London, no. 383, owned with Hallsborough Gallery, London, sold 1954 to]; Sidney James van den Bergh (1898–1977),(3) Wassenaar, sold 1973 through; [G. Cramer, The Hague, to]; Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter, Los Angeles, given 2009 to; LACMA.
Footnotes
(1) According to the printed record of the results of the sale. The name is variously recorded: the entry in the sale catalogue itself is annotated "2100 Kruyer." An unidentified article about the results of the sale attached to a copy of the sale catalogue at the Getty Research Institute presumably misspelled the name of the buyer as "Krager." Haarlem-London 2008, no. 45, p. 151, identifies the buyer as P. E. Kruyer.
(2) According to an annotated photo mount from Douwes now at the Getty Research Institute.
(3) Sidney James van den Bergh was a major collector of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. He was a senior manager of Unilever and served as minister of defense for the Netherlands in 1959. A. B. de Vries 1964 and A. B. de Vries et. al. 1968.
Selected Bibliography: Walsh, Jr., John., and Cynthis P. Schneider. A Mirror of Nature: Dutch Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter (Second Edition). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992.
King, Jennifer, ed. Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2020.
Walsh, Amy L. The Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carter Collection of Dutch Paintings. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019. https://archive.org/details/Carter_Collection_Dutch_Paintings (accessed May 23, 2022).
Esguerra, Clarissa, and Michaela Hansen. Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2022.

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