Head of a Young Boy

c. 1650

Jan de Bray

Painter, Dutch, c. 1627 - 1688

The head and shoulders of a young, pale-skinned boy fill this oval portrait painting. His shoulders are angled to our right, but he turns his face to look at us out of the corners of his large, dark blue eyes. His round cheeks and nose are slightly flushed, and his full, pink lips are closed over a cleft chin. His wavy brown hair falls to his shoulders and around his high, lace-edged collar. The boy’s brown doublet has small buttons down the front, which falls open over a linen shirt. His sleeves are also slit almost up to the shoulders to reveal linen there, too. Light from high to our left falls across the boy’s face and casts the ocean-green background into shadow.

Media Options

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Measuring just under 3-by-3 inches, this diminutive Head of a Young Boy engages the viewer through the sitter’s intense and serious gaze. Executed in free yet delicate brushstrokes, the work reveals the artist's mastery in rendering details within a restricted space. The smooth surface of the copper plate provided a perfect ground for the highly refined and precise technique of the painter, traditionally believed to be Jan de Bray. Customarily, such small portraits were placed in wide ebony frames that direct the viewer's eye to the image. The artist enhanced the illusionism of daylight streaming in from the left by painting a narrow shadow along the upper-left curved edge of the picture, thereby suggesting the presence of the frame.

The attribution of miniature portraits is often difficult to establish. This painting is similar, but not identical in style and technique, to miniatures De Bray executed early in his career. The boy, who is probably about six to eight years old, wears a doublet that can be dated to between 1650 and 1655. De Bray often made bust-length depictions of children as parts of Dutch family portrait series. Head of a Young Boy most likely belongs to one such series.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on copper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Maida and George Abrams

  • Dimensions

    overall (oval): 7.5 x 5.9 cm (2 15/16 x 2 5/16 in.)
    framed: 16.8 x 15.2 cm (6 5/8 x 6 in.)

  • Accession

    1995.74.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Head of a Young Boy, c. 1650

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Rafael Valls Limited, London); purchased 1960s by Maida and George Abrams, Newton, Massachusetts; gift 1995 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1995

  • Adriaen Brouwer: Youth Making a Face, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1995-1996, not in brochure.

1998

  • A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, not in catalogue.

2000

  • Small Northern European Portraits from The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000, brochure checklist no. 36.

Bibliography

2000

  • Spicer, Joaneath, and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Small Northern European Portraits from the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. Exh. brochure, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000: no. 36.

Wikidata ID

Q20177316

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