Bust of a Young Man with Long Hair 1676

Dirck de Bray made this red chalk drawing of a young man in 1676, in the Netherlands. The sitter's long hair and draped clothing were fashionable at the time, indicating a certain level of social status or aspiration. Looking closer, the drawing style itself offers insights into the art world of the Dutch Golden Age. Artists like de Bray were responding to a growing market for portraits and genre scenes among the rising middle class. The rapid, sketch-like quality suggests a shift away from formal, academic styles toward a more informal and accessible mode of representation. The institutional context is crucial here. Artists' guilds played a central role in regulating artistic training and production. De Bray himself came from a family of artists and would have been immersed in this culture from a young age. By examining archival sources such as guild records, probate inventories, and contemporary art criticism, we can gain a richer understanding of the social forces that shaped de Bray's artistic practice.