Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate their homes with works of art. Hals was highly sought after by wealthy burgher commissioners of individual, married-couple, family, and institutional-group portraits. He also painted tronies for the general market.
Paintings by Frans Hals
The Gypsy Girl (Hals) (1626)
The Gypsy Girl, also known as Gypsy Girl or Young Woman (La Bohémienne) (and sometimes erroneously referred to as Malle Babbe) is an oil-on-wood painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1628–1630, and now in the Louvre Museum, in Paris. It is a tronie, a study of facial expression and unusual costume, rather than a commissioned portrait.
The display of cleavage was not a common feature of costume seen in public in Hals' time and place. For this reason various art historians have assumed a painting of a prostitute was intended. From the 19th century the Louvre titled the painting La Bohémienne, meaning a female gypsy, but there is no reason to assume the model was Romani.
Young Man with a Skull (1628)
Young Man with a Skull is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, created in 1626-1628, now in the National Gallery, London. The painting was previously thought to be a depiction of Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick, but is now considered to be a vanitas, a reminder of the precarious nature of life and the inevitability of death.
The painting shows a young man wearing a feathered red bonnet and swathed with a cloak across his chest, gesturing dramatically towards the viewer with his right hand while holding a skull in his left hand. It was first documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who described it as a life-size half-length portrait of Hamlet. De Groot also wrote that it was exhibited on loan in the Dublin National Gallery in 1895. He noticed this painting's similarity to another painting by Hals, and he remarked that in this work the subject's right hand "formerly rested on a skull which has been painted out".
Malle Babbe (1640)
Malle Babbe (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmɑlə ˈbɑbə]) is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted c. 1633-1635, and now in the Gemäldegalerie, in Berlin. The painting has also been titled as Hille Bobbe or the Witch of Haarlem. It was traditionally interpreted as a tronie, or genre painting in a portrait format, depicting a mythic witch-figure. The painting is now often identified as a genre-style portrait of a specific individual from Haarlem, known as Malle (meaning "crazy") Babbe, who may have been an alcoholic or suffered from a mental illness.
The painting has been an object of artistic admiration from Hals's lifetime, as there are several copies and variants painted by his followers. It was admired by Gustave Courbet, who made a copy of it in 1869 while it was on view in Munich.
Laughing Cavalier (1624)
The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a portrait by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals in the Wallace Collection in London. It was described by art historian Seymour Slive as "one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits". The title is an invention of the Victorian public and press, dating from its exhibition in the opening display at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872–1875, just after its arrival in England, after which it was regularly reproduced as a print, and became one of the best known old master paintings in Britain. The unknown subject is in fact not laughing, but can be said to have an enigmatic smile, much amplified by his upturned moustache.
The portrait measures 83 cm × 67.3 cm (32.7 in × 26.5 in) and is inscribed at top right Æ'TA SVÆ 26/Aº1624, which expands to aetatis suae 26, anno 1624 in Latin and means that the portrait was painted when the sitter was 26 and in the year 1624, and was therefore born in 1597 or 1598. The identity of the man is unknown, and though the recorded 19th-century titles in Dutch, English and French mostly suggest a military man, or at least an officer in one of the part-time militia companies that were often the subjects of group portraits, including some by Hals and later Rembrandt's The Night Watch (1642), in fact he was as likely to be a wealthy civilian. Art historian Pieter Biesboer suggests the painting may depict Dutch cloth merchant Tieleman Roosterman (1598–1673), who is also the subject of another Hals portrait.
The Merry Drinker (1629)
The Merry Drinker is an oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch artist Frans Hals, from c. 1628–1630. The painting has dimensions of 81 by 66.5 centimeters. It is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.
Hals's unique painting style is a result of layering the paint and employing loose brushstrokes. It has been difficult to classify the painting and there has been much discussion about whether it is a genre piece or a portrait. It is one of the Rijksmuseum's most popular pieces due to its originality and candor, reflecting the energy of the Dutch Golden Age.
Willem van Heythuysen Posing with a Sword (1625)
Willem van Heythuysen posing with a sword is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1625-1630, and now in the Alte Pinakothek, in Munich. It shows the Haarlem cloth merchant Willem van Heythuysen in a theatrical pose with a rapier.
The painting shows a proud man standing in front of a neoclassical architectural element with drapery, leaning on a sword. In the distance a garden with a couple can be seen, and in the foreground some roses lie on the ground. It was first documented by Adriaan Loosjes, who mentioned it in his tribute to Hals in 1789 as being in the collection Gerrit Willem van Oosten de Bruyn. Much later Ernst Wilhelm Moes included it in his Iconographia Batavia, and Hofstede de Groot documented it again with the following description:WILLEM VAN HEYTHUYSEN. B. 123; M. 44. Full-length; life size. He stands with the left foot forward and the right drawn back. His figure is turned three-quarters left; his head almost faces the spectator, at whom he is looking. His left hand is pressed to his side; his right hand clasps the hilt of a sword with its point on the ground. He has a moustache and pointed beard. He wears a broad-brimmed hat, a white collar like a ruff trimmed with lace, and a very richly trimmed costume of dark blue with broad lace-trimmed cuffs. Behind him a lilac- brown drapery hangs on a fantastic piece of architecture; to the left is a view of a French garden; on the ground lie roses. Painted about 1635.
Meagre Company (1637)
The Meagre Company, or The Company of Captain Reinier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw, refers to the only militia group portrait, or schutterstuk, painted by Frans Hals outside of Haarlem. Today the painting is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum, where it is considered one of its main attractions of the Honor Gallery. Hals was unhappy about commuting to Amsterdam to work on the painting and, unlike his previous group portraits, was unable to deliver it on time. The sitters contracted Pieter Codde to finish the work.
Hals was originally commissioned in 1633, after the favorable reception of his previous militia group portrait, The Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1633, in which all ensigns are holding flags and all officers are holding their weapons. The sergeants were shown, holding halberds to differentiate them from officers with spontoons. Hals seems to have initially intended an Amsterdam version of the same painting, beginning on the left with a smiling flag bearer wearing a flamboyant cut-sleeve jacket with lace and holding a flag in the color of his sash. Though it is impossible to tell on which side of the canvas Hals began painting, the light falls onto the figures from the left in the "standard" Hals tradition and this is also where the most important figures are situated within the painting. Since each sitter paid for his own portrait, it is presumed that Hals began with the most important sitters in order to "sell" canvas room to other paying officers. Whether or not Hals did in fact start on the left or drew a sketch of the entire group at once, the flag bearer on the left in this painting has been painted in a remarkably flamboyant way from the tip of his hat to the toe of his boots. This was possibly to prove to the decision makers in Amsterdam that Hals was capable of painting a schutterstuk in the "Amsterdam style", which included the entire figure. In Haarlem, the civic guards were traditionally portrayed in the kniestuk style of being "cut off at the knee" in three-quarter length portraits.
Marriage Portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen (1622)
Marriage Portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted c. 1622. It is held in the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam. The couple has been identified as Isaac Massa and his bride Beatrix van der Laen.
The painting shows a happy couple sitting against a tree "picnic-style", with a garden scene in the distance. They smile at the viewer and look more relaxed than amorous.
The Lute Player (Hals) (1624)
The Lute Player is an oil-on-canvas painting from 1623 or 1624 now in the Louvre by the Haarlem painter Frans Hals, showing a smiling actor wearing a jester's costume and playing a lute.
This painting was documented by Wilhelm von Bode in 1883, Ernst Wilhelm Moes in 1909 and Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who wrote:98. A FOOL WITH A MANDOLINE. B. 45; M. 216.- Half-length. A man turned half-right, in a red costume trimmed with yellow. He has long hair, and wears a red and yellow cap. His head is seen in full face; he looks up to the left. With his right hand he touches the strings of a mandoline; his left hand grasps the neck. Very freely handled. Especially good are the various contrasting flesh-tones, the red and yellow of the costume, and the reflections in the eyes. [Compare 95.] Signed in the right at top, F. H.; canvas, about 29 inches by 24 inches. A copy (B. 16, and see M. 216) is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1907 catalogue, No. 1093; it measures 26 inches by 24 inches, having rather less at the foot than the original. In the collection of Baron Gustave de Rothschild, Paris.
Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse (1664)
The Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse Haarlem is a regents group portrait of four regentesses and (on the far right) the manager of the house painted by Frans Hals, c. 1664, for the Oude Mannenhuis in Haarlem, the Netherlands. It is a pendant to the Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse.
The regentesses portrayed were (left to right) Adriaentje Schouten, Marijtje Willemsdr (also recorded as regentess of Het Dolhuys), Anna van Damme (first married Abraham de Ridder, then in 1650 married Salomon Cousaert), Adriana Bredenhof (wife of the schout Mattheus Everswijn).
The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616 (1616)
The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616 is the first of five large group portraits of militia companies (schutterstukken) painted by the Dutch painter Frans Hals. This portrait of the St. George (or St. Joris) civic guard of Haarlem, today is considered one of the main attractions of the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.
Hals was in his thirties when he painted this group portrait and was not yet an established portrait painter. Hals had precedents in the work of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, who had painted group portraits of the Haarlem's militia companies in 1583 and 1599.
Shrovetide Revellers (1610)
Shrovetide Revellers, also known as Merrymakers at Shrovetide, is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in around 1616–17. It is one of the earliest surviving works by Hals, and has been held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City since 1913. The painting shows people festivities at Shrovetide (Dutch: Carnaval), an annual carnival of food and jollity which takes place before the Christian fasting season of Lent.
The painting shows the face of an elegantly dressed smiling woman raising her right finger to make a point, while a man grabs her shoulder to whisper in her ear: he has a string of herring, eggs and mussels around his neck, with a pig's trotter and a fox tail, symbols of gluttony and foolishness respectively. Another amused gentleman, with a wurst hanging from his cap, leans on the first man's shoulder and listens to their banter. Some claim these are the Baroque theatre characters Peeckelhaeringh and Hans Wurst. Behind them other people are talking and laughing. The flagon Bears the initials "fh".