RKD STUDIES

The half-length depictions of fishermen, -women and -children form a separate group in the oeuvre of Frans Hals and must have been highly popular. Sixteen different representations of this subject survive, with only one of them showing Hals’s autograph involvement [264]. Based on this exceptional work, an assessment of the remaining fifteen paintings is possible. After its surprise discovery – it was sold at a provincial sale for £3, and subsequently auctioned for 2.800 guineas at Christie’s in London in 1935 – the painting of two fisherboys in the dunes attracted considerable attention for a short time.¹ Together with the remaining group of depictions fisherfolk its attribution was doubted by Van Dantzig, Trivas, and most other Hals scholars at the time.² Slive concurred: ‘To judge from reproductions, it is a nineteenth-century painting done in Hals’ style’.³ Meanwhile, several thorough examinations of the pigments have excluded such a date, and judging from first-hand inspection before and after recent cleaning, it now seems to me the most artistically outstanding artwork from the group of folkloristic half-length figures created in Hals’s workshop.⁴

Notably, several smaller areas are painted strikingly freshly – especially the head the tallest boy. There, accurate modelling has been combined with the precise brushwork that was only mastered by Hals himself. In the softly and confidently graded colors and the stripes of the brush elegantly modelling the cap of the boy in the foreground, Hals’s brilliant handwriting is recognizable. In contrast, the remaining areas – the sleeves, hand, jackets and baskets, as well as the contours of the nose and chin of the boy in front – were executed by a coarser hand. This a collaboration of several ‘hands’ within the picture became more distinct after a cleaning by Martin Bijl in 2016, which made the visual appearance of the scene much clearer. The surface is now free from its shellac-like varnish and a charming play of color nuances has become visible, particularly in the faces. The softness of the transitions and the attention to sculpted details in the facial features correspond to the style that is observed in commissioned portraits that Hals painted between 1634 and 1637. The type of accurately placed highlights and shadows also matches this period exactly. The diagonally rising dune landscape in the background creates a pattern which is repeated in several other genre paintings from the Hals workshop. In its cool tonality and draughtsman-like brushwork it is recognizable as a contribution by Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), whose hand is of course also found in the background of several other works by Hals.⁵ The landscape with its small figures in the distance and the tones of ochre and green correspond with Molijn’s 1629 Landscape with a cottage in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [265] [266].⁶

264
Frans Hals, Pieter de Molijn and possibly Jan Hals (I)
Two fisherboys, c. 1634-1637
canvas, oil paint, 76.5 x 71 cm
Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation
© The Phoebus Foundation
cat.no. A3.30

265
Detail of fig. 264
Pieter de Molijn
Two fisherboys, c. 1634-1637
Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation
© The Phoebus Foundation

If we compare the execution of Two fisherboys with other paintings of the same genre, different approaches and skills become apparent. A sparse and accurate painting technique on the one side is contrasted with mannered lashes of the brush on the other. Three-dimensional modelling is present here, and a two-dimensional color pattern there. The expressive, close gaze of the model also differs from the vague direction of the gaze in the picture of the other figures. This difference can be observed well in the comparison of the frontally depicted faces in the Two fisherboys and the Antwerp Fisherboy in a landscape (A4.2.20) [267] [268]. The former features opaque highlights and dark shadow lines that were placed on top of the semi-transparent skin tones in an economic and very precise manner. In the latter, we encounter randomly and carelessly placed choppy brushstrokes in viscous paint, which stand out from the subtle tonality of the skin tone as ‘floating’ reflections. The painters of the fisherchildren were inspired by Hals’s encouragement for bold brushwork, yet often went way beyond his sketchy experiments. A style of painting as employed in the Fishergirl with a basket on her head [272] is not only rough and unfinished, but it displays an unusual composition built up out of dots and choppy lines. Slive suspected that this picture was created by an independent imitator, just as the Fishergirl with a basket in Cologne [273] and the New York version of Malle Babbe (A4.2.31). ‘[...] the brushwork is too indecisive and the forms remain too amorphous for it to be accepted as an original by Hals.’ is his verdict of the Cologne painting, and he continues ‘It was probably done by an anonymous contemporary follower and to judge from the dark tonality and streaming brushwork this artist was active after Hals painted his genre pieces of the 1630’s [...] Perhaps these three border-line pictures were done by the same anonymous hand’.⁷ I previously assumed that the entire group of paintings of fisherfolk were made by one and the same assistant of Hals, the so-called ‘Master of Fisher Children’, which can no longer be upheld due to the detailed comparisons which are now available.⁸ In contrast to Slive’s assumption that three of the pictures he listed were based on original works by Hals, I now consider these artworks to be original executions, created by Hals’s workshop and therefore marked correctly with the monogram FH. A comparison within the group of sixteen fisherfolk paintings demonstrates few stylistic similarities, so that at least five different executors can be assumed. A look at the details of the Cincinnati Fishergirl with a basket on her head demonstrates a character which differs from all other pictures [275].

269
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Fisherboy in a landscape, c. 1630
canvas, oil paint, 74 x 61 cm
lower right: FH
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, inv.no. 188
cat.no. A4.2.20

270
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Fisherboy with a basket in a landscape, c. 1630
canvas, oil paint, 74.1 x 60 cm
lower left: FH
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, inv.no. NGI.193
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland
cat.no. A4.2.21

It is a rare coincidence in pictorial tradition that sometimes an entire catalogue of quotes from contemporary pictures appears. Such a derivation of the fisherfolk paintings from the Hals workshop can be found in three 17th-century paintings attributed to Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1609/1610-1668) (B12, B13, B14), which just as likely could have been created within the Hals workshop, where the relevant templates were to be found. In Beach scene with fisherfolk (B14) [276] several figures from the Hals workshop have been adapted and combined into a larger figure group: the privately owned Fishergirl [271], the Dublin Fisherboy with a basket in a landscape [270], the Antwerp Fisherboy in a landscape [269], and the Fishergirl with a basket on her head from Cincinnati [272]. In addition, the elderly man with a fur cap somewhat resembles the type as depicted in Fisherman with a fur cap and a basket [274]. This joint representation of multiple models in one composition suggests that designs for the main group of the fisherchildren were available in the workshop at the same time which thus must have been created at simultaneously.

275
Detail of fig. 272
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Fishergirl with a basket on her head, c. 1636-1638
Cincinnati Art Museum

276
Detail of cat.no. B14
attributed to Jan Miense Molenaer
Beach scene with fisherfolk, c. 1640
private collection