According to Houbraken he was the most famous pupil of his father, the architect and poet Salomon de Bray. Houbraken called Jan the ``pearl in Haarlem's crown''. Houbraken saw a painting by de Bray of David and the Return of the Ark of the Covenant in the collection of Arnold van Halen in Amsterdam, dated 1697, that _he_admired for its realistic flesh tones in the forms of David playing the harp and the Levite s behind him. <sep>, Pronoun: he <sep>, A: Bray <sep>, B: Arnold van Halen