Lot 2069 Dα

This painting was previously only known from a photograph from the 1930s in the RKD and until recent years was considered to be the only architectural painting by the Haarlem figure painter Salomon de Bray. In an exhibition dedicated to the de Bray family of artists in 2008, a second architectural painting was shown, a much larger and more richly decorated new discovery dated 1657 (P. Biesboer, op. cit. p. 57). That Salomon de Bray produced so few architectural pictures is all the more remarkable because he always described himself as an "architect and painter". In fact, in addition to his magnificent paintings, he also designed some buildings and wrote a book on architecture. In addition, he also wrote poetry and composed songs. Salomon's multiple talents quickly earned him great renown among Holland's intellectual elite, from which his sons also benefited, especially Jan as a history painter.
Our small composition offers a view into the interior of a large, brightly lit temple. The monumentality of the building is underlined by the small figures next to the huge columns on both sides of the entrance stairs. Within this setting the biblical event, Mary's presentation in the temple, seems almost incidental. The meaning of these architectural pictures by de Bray became clearer after the discovery of the second such work, which depicts the Queen of Sheba in the temple of Solomon. The authors of the catalogue note that the true content of these pictures is not the biblical narratives depicted, but rather the idea of Solomon's Temple. The theme was topical in that around the middle of the century, the Dutch-Portuguese rabbi in Amsterdam Jacob Jehudah Leon had written an internationally acclaimed book about this biblical building.