Dr. Abraham Bredius (18 April 1855 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

– 13 March 1946 in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word ...

) was a Dutch art collector, art historian, and museum curator.

Life

Bredius travelled widely, visiting various art collections in his youth, and worked at the Dutch Museum for History and Art before becoming director, from 1889 to 1909, of the Mauritshuis. He became a

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally co ...

expert who had many differences of opinion with

Cornelis Hofstede de Groot Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator. Life He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Ger ...

. He was a regular contributor to the historical magazines ''Oud Holland'' and ''Künstler-Inventare''. In 1922, he left the Netherlands for health reasons and settled in

, publishing books in 1927 on

Jan Steen Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour. Life ...

and, in 1935, a

catalog Catalog or catalogue may refer to: *Cataloging **'emmy on the 'og **in science and technology ***Library catalog, a catalog of books and other media ****Union catalog, a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries ...

paintings, often referred to in the literature as "Bredius 1935". He bequeathed his papers to the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, and his art collection lives on in the

Museum Bredius Museum Bredius is a museum named after Abraham Bredius on the Lange Vijverberg in The Hague. It is remarkable for its collection of etchings and paintings, but is most attractive to visitors for its accurate restoration of the 18th-century ''Heren ...

. He also bequeathed several Rembrandt paintings to the National Dutch collection, including Rembrandt's ''

Homer Dictating his Verses ''Homer Dictating his Verses'' is a 1663 oil-on-canvas painting by Rembrandt, signed and dated by the artist. It is now in the Mauritshuis, to which it was bequeathed in 1946 by Abraham Bredius, who had loaned it to the museum since 1894, when he ...

''.

References

Abraham Bredius
in the

Dictionary of Art Historians The ''Dictionary of Art Historians'' (DAH) is an online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia accessible through the internet. Examples include Wikipedia and '' ...

External links

Books by Abraham Bredius
on the

Google Books Library Project Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

Abraham Bredius
on inghist

1855 births 1946 deaths Directors of museums in the Netherlands Dutch art historians Mauritshuis Writers from Amsterdam LGBT people from the Netherlands Rembrandt scholars Scholars of Dutch art {{Netherlands-writer-stub