Old Masters
Leonaert Bramer
1596 – Delft - 1674
Martyrdom of a female saint
Oil on slate,
20.8 x 28.5 cms
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, England
LITERATURE: [reference]
Janssen & Goldsmith, Leonaert Bramer 1596-1674. Ingenious painter and draughtsman in Rome and Delft, [Delft 1994]
General Bibliography
This work is characteristic of the artist’s Italian period, painted with swift, expressive brushstrokes. Painted on slate, it has maintained much of its luminosity and is in excellent condition. The figure of the angel is very similar to the Fall of Simon Magus, also painted in Rome, now housed in the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Dijon. Bramer travelled widely in Italy and France, 1614-28, and drew on a variety of influences for his most characteristic paintings - small nocturnal scenes with vivid effects of light such as this. Works such as the Scene of Sorcery (Bordeaux) have earned him the reputation an interesting independent who cannot easily be pigeonholed.
Bramer stayed in Italy for more than ten years during which time he worked at the court of Prince Mario Farnese and his works of this period found their way into famous Italian collections such as the of Vincenzo Giustiniani, Caravaggio’s great patron. Because he painted so many nocturnal scenes, the Italians honoured Bramer with the title Leonardo della Notte [Leonardo of the Night].
Bramer was also one of the few Dutch artists to paint frescoes in Holland, but none of his work in the medium survived. He evidently knew well the greatest of his Delft contemporaries, Vermeer, for he came to the latter's defence when his future mother-in-law was trying to prevent him from marrying her daughter. In fact, it has been suggested that Bramer, rather than Carel Fabritius, was Vermeer's teacher.
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