Signed in black chalk S: de Bra (lower right)

Red and black chalk, and grey wash, watermark fools cap with three balls

290 x 182 mm. (11 3/8 x 7 1/8 in.)

Salomon was born in Amsterdam in 1597 and moved to Haarlem before 1617, and presumably settled there for the rest of his life. In 1625 he married Anna Westerbean, sister of the doctor and poet Jacob Westerbean. The couple had about 10 children, and three of the boys became artists: Jan, Dirck and Joseph. After an outbreak of the plague in 1664 Salomon and his daughters Margareta and Juliana and his sons Jacobus and Joseph died.

As a young man Salomon was apprenticed to Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem. Not only was Salomon head of the family workshop, whose practices are extensively discussed by Giltaij and Lammertse1, but he is also known to have worked as an architect, though little of his work is known. According to Giltaij and Lammertse Salomons (and Jans) drawings are divided into two broad categories: those which are studies for paintings, and the second are recordings of finished works by the family. Our drawing clearly falls into the former category, and stylistically characteristic of his drawings. Salomon used two chalks, red and black, throughout his graphic work. Moreover our drawing was included in the important pioneering early study of Salomon by Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke work in 1938/39. More recently Jeroen Giltaij and Friso Lammertse have assisted in providing the provenance on this drawing and confirmed the attribution of our drawing. The latter has dated our drawing to 1640s or 1650s2.

1.Jeroen Giltaij and Friso Lammertse, Maintaining a Studio Archive: Drawn Copies by the De Braij Family, Master Drawings, volume 39, no 4, pp 367-394.

2.Written communication May 2004 and April 2005.