All works in (under construction) Drawings 2

Interior of a Bookshop

? Haarlem, 1628

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey wash; framing line in brown ink

height 76 mm × width 77 mm

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: left of centre, in pencil, de Braay; to the right of that, in pencil, S. de Bray; lower left, by Goll von Franckenstein, in brown ink, N 3634 (L. 2987)

  • stamped on verso: upper left, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); below that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: Arms of Baden-Breisgau (?) with the letters ABL (for Abraham Blum of Lörrach) below; cf. Churchill, no. 267 (1644)

Provenance

…; Jonkheer Johan Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velsen (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velsen; his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832); sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (De Vries et al.), l July 1833 sqq., Album VV, one of four in no. 2, fl. 2, to ‘De Vries’; Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam; his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., as Thiery de Bray, with inv. no. RP-T-1884-A-290 in no. 81, fl. 110 to ‘Rembrandt’ for the Vereniging Rembrandt; from whom acquired by the museum (L. 2228), 1884

Object number: RP-T-1884-A-291

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Copyright: Public domain

Entry

When this drawing and inv. no. RP-T-1884-A-290 – both illustrating scenes from inside a bookseller’s shop – were in the collection of the Goll van Franckenstein family, they were together with a pair of sheets, also by Salomon de Bray, in the British Museum, London (inv. nos. 1895,0915.1131) and 1895,0915.1132), both of which represent a framemaker’s shop.1 Both London sheets are dated 1646 6/4 (i.e. 4 June 1646),2 and are the same height but wider than the Amsterdam drawings, one of which is dated 1628. There is a very similar inscribed date in Salomon’s hand, 1646 8/12 on the drawing of Clara and Albert de Bray Asleep in their Cradle in the Morgan Library & Museum, New York (inv. no. III, 176).3

The present drawing shows customers examining loose works on paper, probably prints. Heijbroek (1984) suggested that the bookshop was in Haarlem. The scene was not drawn from life, but presents a representative sample of the wares sold in shops of this kind.

The purpose of the pairs of drawings in the Rijksmuseum and the British Museum is unknown, but the Amsterdam sheets may have been designs for woodcuts. This is suggested by a drawing of 1627 by De Bray in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 3993),4 which is in a similar style and was the design for a printer’s mark executed by an anonymous woodcutter. It consists of a book­press standing in a room, and is set in an oval with the Haarlem coat of arms above.

** Peter Schatborn, 1998**

Literature

F. Lugt et al., La Vie en Hollande aux XVIIe siècle, exh. cat. Paris (Musée des Arts Décoratifs) 1967, no. 203; M. Schapelhouman, Het beste bewaard. Een Amsterdamse verzameling en het ontstaan van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1983, no. 25; W. Martin, ‘The Life of a Dutch Artist, Part VI: How the Painter Sold his Work’, Burlington Magazine 11 (1907), no. 54, pp. 368-69, fig. 8; A.M. Hind, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols., coll. cat. London 1915-32, III (1926), p. 55, under no. 2; J.W. von Moltke, ‘Jan de Bray’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 11/12 (1938-39), p. 407, no. Z. 128 (as Jan de Bray); Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77, p. 13 (fig. i); J.F. Heijbroek, ‘Twee tekeningen van Salomon de Bray?’, De Boekenwereld 1 (1984), pp. 22-23 (online at https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_boe022198401_01/_boe022198401_01_0005.php); J. van der Waals and R. van Gelder, Een wereldreiziger op papier. De atlas van Laurens van der Hem (1621-1678), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 1992), p. 20, fig. 7b; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 64; B. van den Boogert, Rembrandts schatkamer, Zwolle 1999, p. 24, fig. 9; A. Bouwman, Stad van boeken. Handschrift en druk in Leiden (1260-2000), Leiden 2008, p. 217; https://rkd.nl/images/308939

Citation

(accessed 8 December 2025 21:40:17).

Footnotes