Curtis_O_Baer_2010

11. Leonart Bramer (Dutch, 1596 – 1674 )

Women Singing verso: Women Playing Musical Instruments 1640 s or 1660 s

Pen and ink wash 5 x 11 1 ⁄ 8 inches ( 12 . 7 x 28 . 2 cm) Inscribed at center: vrouen gesang (?)

provenance New York, Drey Gallery; Collection Curtis O. Baer

exhibitions Atlanta, 1985 , cat. no. 140 ; Milwaukee, The Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art , Leonaert Bramer, A Painter of the Night , December 4 , 1992– February 28 , 1993 , cat. nos. 54 a and 54 b, illus. literature Frima Fox Hofrichter, Leonaert Bramer, A Painter of the Night, excat 1992 , pp. 116 – 17 ; Jane Ten Brink Goldsmith and Michael Plomp, Leonaert Bramer, Ingenious Painter and Draftsman in Rome and Delft , 1994 , excat. no. 61 , p. 207 .

(See previous catalogue entry for biographic information)

The shape of the present sheet suggests that the drawings were a study for, or a riccordo of, a composition for a vaulted ceiling. Hofrichter notes that the pools of ink and wash recall the drawing style of an album by Bramer from 1652 – 53 . On the basis of the women’s costume, however, she dates the works in the early-mid 1660 s, a period in which Bramer was especially busy with decorative ceiling and wall commissions. Brink

and Plomp suggest that the draw ing is as likely to have been an experimental work as a study for a particular project, and date it to the 1640 s.

verso