RKD STUDIES

Who were these artist from Hals’s workshop, so similar and yet so clearly different? If we analyze the entire inventory of paintings created by the workshop during the last two decades of Hals’s life, at least three groups can be distinguished. The largest number of related portraits can be found in the two family-groups in London (A4.3.19) and Madrid [304]. The London picture is probably the earliest, after which followed the Madrid picture that is rendered in an even looser style. The weaknesses in the depiction of anatomy, proportions and physiognomy are the same throughout, just like the two-dimensional rendering of the faces, hands and costumes, and the exaggerated emphasis on compositional diagonals. Something of this mechanical style can also be found in several individual portraits. In addition, there are about twenty extant individual portraits with a similar imitating manner of execution, which deviates even further from Hals’s style. Another group of the same number features autograph creations by Hals, combined with workshop contributions. The remainder consists of a small number of exceptional, fully autograph works by the master.

On the basis of the extant archival documents only a few individuals can be identified as Hals’s assistants from the master’s later career. Above all, there are Hals’s sons from his second marriage to Lysbeth Reyniersdr. (1593-1675): Frans (1618-1669), Jan (c. 1620-c. 1654), Reynier (1627-1672), and Claes (1628-1686). They all probably learned their trade in their father’s workshop and are likely to have worked there over several years.¹ In addition, there was Pieter van Roestraeten (1630-1700), born in Haarlem and working with Hals until October 1651.² And finally, there was Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne (1628-1702), also from Haarlem, who trained with Hals for nine months in 1647.³

304
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II), and Cornelis Symonsz. van der Schalcke
Portrait of a family, possibly Jacob Ruychaver, Maria Hendrixs, their children Geertruid and Willem, and a Black boy, c. 1648-1650
canvas, oil paint, 202 x 285 cm
Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, inv.no. 179 (1934.8)
cat.no. A4.3.24

Jan Hals
Since Frans Hals the Younger is recorded as a painter several times, yet not a single picture by him is documented, we first of all turn to Jan. His production of ‘Halsian’ paintings is confirmed by signatures on five well preserved portraits.⁴ He was born around 1620 and probably trained in his father’s workshop, where he remained until his marriage to Maria Leendertsdr. de With († 1648) on 12 January 1648. Jan Hals created small scale genre paintings [305] in the style of his older half-brother Harmen Hals (1611-1669) and Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1609/1610-1668), as well as portraits that imitate his father’s manner. His earliest signed work dates from 1635 and depicts three children in an interior [306]. His latest documented activity was a commission by the ribbon weaver Nicolaas van der Gon (1630-1701). The latter married Cornelia Schaep (1633-1691) on 11 April 1651 and had himself and his wife painted by Frans Hals. According to the couple’s 1665 inventory, Jan Hals had taken on the execution of the three life-size portraits of the family of Van der Gon’s brother.⁵ Jan’s active period of seventeen years coincides with the period of creation for most of the portraits discussed here, which are close to Frans Hals but nevertheless differ from his autograph execution. As different as the genre paintings by Jan Hals turned out, his portraits vary even more strongly, which makes it challenging to assign artworks to him. Still, detailed comparisons do not lead to doubts about previously accepted attributions. Both in Slive’s 1961 article and in my 1971 publication, the so-called Portrait of Frau Schmale of 1644 [307] is listed as a work by Jan Hals.

307
toegeschreven aan Jan Hals (I)
Portret van een vrouw, 1644 gedateerd
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv./cat.nr. Gal.-Nr. 1361
© Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Photo: Elke Estel/Hans-Peter Klut
cat.no. A4.3.14

Only five portraits by Jan, created in the years 1644-1648, can be secured on the basis of their preserved signatures – very different from his genre paintings which he signed and dated on an ongoing basis from 1635 onwards. An explanation for this difference may lie in the character of the commissions: the master to whom a painting was commissioned signed the final product, even though they had perhaps not fully carried out the painting themselves. Consequently, we can conclude that Jan Hals worked as an independent portrait painter for only a short period of time. The joint work for the Van der Gon family testifies of his return to his father’s workshop by 1651, where he remained until c. 1652. After April of that year there are no more records of him or his wife. Jan must have deceased before 1654, the year in which two of his children are referred to as orphans.⁶ No independent development becomes apparent in Jan’s extant oeuvre. Instead, we can observe an obvious orientation on the different models designed by his father. The painterly technique in the 1644 portrait in Detroit [308] and the contemporary Portrait of a gentleman in Raleigh [309] are reminiscent of the rendering of the faces in the 1641 Regents of St Elisabeth’s Hospital (A1.102) [310] [311] [312]; and the 1648 Portrait of an unknown man in Toronto [313] brings to mind Frans Hals’s Portrait of Joseph Coymans of four years earlier [314]. However, in the latter’s determination in expression is lacking in Jan’s portrait [315] [316]. The stylistic inconsistency in Jan’s portraits is astonishing, as is demonstrated well when juxtaposing the 1648 pendants [313] [317], and by the different character of the two male portraits of 1644 [308] [309]. The absence of a clear visual concept becomes apparent in the overall execution, but also in the composition of individual motifs. This is demonstrated, for instance, by the 1644 portrait in Detroit, which features a too large left arm and hand, combined with a turn of the head and body posture that lack coherence. In addition, the hands in the Toronto Portrait of an unknown man are also illustrative [318] [319]. As weak as they are anatomically, they neither coherently relate to the overall representation. The areas that are more convincing were thus probably carried out by another hand, not least by Frans Hals himself.

310
Detail of fig. 309
Jan Hals (I)
Portrait of a gentleman, 1644
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art

311
Detail of fig. 308
Jans Hals (I)
Portrait of a man, 1644
Detroit Institute of Arts

312
Detail of cat.no. A1.102
Frans Hals (I)
Regents of St Elisabeth’s Hospital, c. 1640-1641
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum

313
Jan Hals (I)
Portrait of an unknown man, dated 1648
Toronto (Canada), Art Gallery of Ontario, inv./cat.nr. 2523
Photo: © AGO
cat.no. A4.3.25

314
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Joseph Coymans (1591-?), dated 1644
Hartford (Connecticut), The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 1958.176
Photo: Allen Phillips
cat.no. A1.111

Reynier Hals
Little is known about Jan’s younger brother Reynier, born in Haarlem in 1627 and deceased in Amsterdam by 1672. Prior to his probable training in his father’s workshop, he embarked on a journey to East India on the merchant ship Nieu Delft, returning to Amsterdam by mid-1645.⁷ Afterwards he is likely to have trained under his father’s tutelage and subsequently worked as a workshop assistant. He never seems to have joined the Haarlem guild of St Luke. On 12 April 1654 Reynier married Margrietje Lodewijcksdr. (1634-1655) in Sloterdijk and the couple resided in Amsterdam afterwards. At the time of his second marriage to Lysbeth Pietersz. Groen (1635-1689) in 1657 in The Hague, declared to be living in that city. Yet by November of that year he was back in Amsterdam where he continued to be on record until his death.⁸ Reynier worked as a painter and art dealer, and it is not known what his achievements were during his time in Haarlem. Only four half-length genre paintings survive, three of which are now kept in the Frans Hals Museum. Just one of these, Sewing women, can be considered somewhat close to the ‘Halsian’ style [320]. The four extant painting by Reynier Hals show a trained skill in representing bodies and faces, apart from a sense of color and the ability to create attractive small-scale compositions. Less developed is his craftmanship in the rendering of facial features and anatomy of the hands. The depicted subjects suggest that Reynier worked for the open market rather than taking on specific commissions.

320
Reynier Hals
Sewing woman
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum

Claes Hals
Claes, also trained by his father, can be distinguished by an independent artistic profile. He was taught roughly in parallel with Pieter van Roestraeten, who married his sister Adriaentje Fransdr. Hals (*1623) in 1654, with Claes as his witness. In 1655 Claes joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke, where he would serve as warden in 1682, 1683, and 1685-1685.⁹ He painted mostly landscapes, a number of which are still preserved, and which demonstrate a particular skill in observing dramatic lighting in the style of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682) and his Haarlem followers. In his motifs and painterly style Claes was initially close to Roelof Jansz. van Vries (c. 1630/1631-after 1681), who was a friend of his brother Reynier and best man at the latter’s wedding in 1659. Claes’s later landscapes resemble those of Jan Vermeer van Haarlem (1628-1691). This is especially true for View of Haarlem from the south-west [321], which was described by Laurens J. Bol as Claes’s chef-d’oeuvre.¹⁰ Sadly, only one of the known landscapes and cityscapes by him is dated, so that a chronology can only be established on very general terms. No signed or otherwise documented portraits by Claes Hals are known today, and the somewhat clumsy figure staffage in his landscapes does not suggest a talent in that area. Nonetheless, both in his landscape paintings as in the style of his figures a development becomes apparent which is demonstrated here by juxtaposing the early Market trader by a cottage – which is based on examples by Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) from the late 1630s and early 1640s – and the Girl reading of c. 1660 [322] [323]. These two paintings show a surprising stylistic evolution, and I do not see any reason to doubt the attribution of the Girl reading, which Abraham Bredius proposed to assign to Claes Hals in 1921 based on an analysis of his signatures.¹¹

321
Claes Hals
View of Haarlem from the south-west
Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, inv./cat.nr. BR 1 G 14

A comparison with Claes Hals’s signed landscape paintings also allows the attribution of the landscape in the family portrait that was last reported at Galleria Caretto in Turin [324]. The right hand background takes up a special position here as a picture within the picture, and it can therefore be assumed that the wide tower and the illuminated roofs have a specific connection with the sitters [325]. Slive tentatively considered Claes Hals as a potential author for the landscape in this group portrait, and Jan Hals as the creator of the figures.¹² I agree with him on both counts and will add some observations. Although the rubbed paint layers in the faces and the small format impede the comparison with other works by the Hals workshop, the restoration undertaken a few years ago now allows a better recognition of the different styles of execution. The positioning of the figures in a flat row parallel to the picture plane, with a backdrop of trees, is in line with a template also appearing in a similar way in the two, probably later, family portraits from the Hals workshop (AA.3.19, A4.3.24). The landscape setting in the present painting, with the wide view into the distance on the right, however, is plausibly identifiable in stylistic terms as an achievement by Claes Hals. Conversely, the design of the faces and the execution of the clothing and the small dog are by a different hand. For the faces, indeed Claes’s brother Jan can be considered. Based on the latter’s life dates and the fact that Claes’s training only began in 1645, the present painting can be dated to the late 1640s at the earliest, or around 1650. This date is supported by Slive’s note that this type of laterally lit, atmospherically emphasized dune landscape was only invented by the mid-17th century. A disturbing feature of the painting is the disproportion between the large, flat faces of the sitters and their tiny hands and squat bodies. This is probably caused by a segmented creation process, in which the heads were designed separately and inserted into the composition when the bodies, hands and costumes had already been painted. The faces, above all those of the man and his wife, certainly have qualities; they are the most ‘Halsian’ parts of the composition. Their execution can be assumed to be a simplified translation of a design by Jan Hals. The thin paint layers in the woman’s face reveal the underlying linear underpaint in grey lines that was applied to the panel’s light colored ground. Fine grey brushstrokes shimmer through the paint layers, marking the contours of the face in details such as the chin, lips, nostrils, nose and eye lids [326]. Other than the thinly painted faces, the costumes are executed in opaque white, black, reddish purple and blue-grey tones, and in excellent quality [327]. They stand out clearly against the flat faces and hands. In the observation of the highlighted edges along the top of the folds and the dark shades in their depth, the costume areas are highly skilled executions and far ahead of the clothing in the other large-scale family portraits from the Hals workshop (AA.3.19, A4.3.24). Among the masters in Haarlem at the time, only Hendrik Pot (c. 1580-1657) would have been capable of such subtle modelling, yet his surfaces are even silkier and more tonal. In addition, Pot moved to Amsterdam by early 1650. Nevertheless, the skill of painting clothing in strong colors can also be found in one of Hals’s pupils, Pieter van Roestraeten, who shall be discussed in detail below. There are no extant examples of his talent from the late 1640s to c. 1650, but in his later genre scenes and still lifes he displays a corresponding sense of color and brightness. Also, the shoes that are captured almost as a still life motif and the swiftly sketched dog could also have been in his capacity [328].

324
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Jan Hals (I) and possibly Claes Hals
Portrait of a family in a dune landscape, c. 1645-1650
panel, oil paint, 76.3 x 111.8 cm
Italy, private collection
© Galleria Luigi Caretto
cat.no. A4.3.28

325
Detail of fig. 324
Portrait of a family in a dune landscape, c. 1645-1650
Italy, private collection
© Galleria Luigi Caretto

326
Detail of fig. 324
Portrait of a family in a dune landscape, c. 1645-1650
Italy, private collection
© Galleria Luigi Caretto

Pieter van Roestraten
Van Roestraten was a painter of genre scenes, portraits, still lifes and landscapes, whose later works do not betray his training in the workshop of Frans Hals. He was baptized in Haarlem on 21 April 1630 and orphaned at nineteen years of age. At that point, he had already worked with Frans Hals for a long time, and on 6 October 1651 he attested to a notary that he had worked for the Hals couple for five years. After this date and until 9 March 1600, documents confirm his presence in Amsterdam. There, he wed Adriaentje Fransdr. Hals, a daughter from Frans Hals’s second marriage, on 6 June 1654. In 1663 or slightly later the couple moved to London, where Roestraeten became highly successful in painting mostly still lifes.¹³ Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) noted that he was often paid forty or fifty pounds sterling for once piece and claims that the successful court painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) had discouraged him from portrait painting so that they would not compete against each other.¹⁴

No works by Roestraeten painted in the manner of Frans Hals are known to date, and neither are any commissioned portraits by his hand. In order to get an impression of Roestraeten’s portraits we can only refer to one of his self-portraits or a genre-scene with portrait-like figures, such as The licentious kitchen maid [329], which includes a male figure with Roestraeten’s features. The similarities become clear when juxtaposed with Portrait of Pieter van Roestraeten [330], a mezzotint by Abraham Bloteling (1640-1690) based on a no longer extant self-portrait by Roestraeten.¹⁵ We observe the same shape of the face, haircut and gap between the teeth, as well as similarly thin pencil-like fingers and large hands [331] [332]. Neither of these artworks are dated, but they fit into the artist’s English period, judging from the overall style. In both cases, the execution is quite ambitious with regard to the design of the faces, whilst the artist’s skill in capturing hands in an organic manner is underdeveloped.

329
Pieter van Roestraeten
The licentious kitchen maid
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, inv./cat.nr. OS-I-253

330
Abraham Bloteling after Pieter van Roestraeten published by Abraham Bloteling
Portrait of Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten (1630-1700), between c.1660-1690
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

331
Detail of fig. 329
Pieter van Roestraeten
The licentious kitchen maid
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum

332
Detail of fig. 330
Abrham Bloteling
Portrait of Pieter van Roestraeten, c. 1660-1690
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne
A very talented and versatile artist from the circle of Frans Hals was Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne, trainee in the Hals-workshop for nine months in 1646-1647. Van der Vinne set out on a journey through Germany, Switzerland and France on 21 August 1652, of which an illustrated travel diary survives.¹⁶ After his return to Haarlem he worked as a poet and painter of landscapes, still lifes, history- and genre-paintings, and portraits. According to Houbraken’s report, Van de Vinne accepted all manner of commissions, even those for shop signs, so that the painter Job Berckheyde (1630-1693) was said to have dubbed him the ‘Raphael of shopsigns’.¹⁷ Yet Houbraken emphasized his skills in the field of portrait painting, with a muscular brushwork in the style of his master Frans Hals. Therefore, as Slive noted, he is a possibly candidate for some of the puzzling paintings that are painted in Hals’s style.¹⁸

There are two separate pictorial traditions for Van der Vinne’s likeness, which are not based on the confirmed self-portrait of 1651 in the Frans Hals Museum [333]. The first portrait type is inserted into a large vanitas still life by Van de Vinne himself, in the form of a drawing on paper.¹⁹ This citation copies a drawing by Van der Vinne’s Haarlem colleague and friend Leendert van der Cooghen (1632-1681), and features a portrait with a longish face with a narrow, long nose and alert eyes [334]. Through the engraving by Etienne Ficquet (1719-1794) for Jean-Baptiste Descamps’ (1715-1791) La vie des peintres Flamands, Allemands et Hollandais, this type was widely distributed [335].²⁰ At the same time there is the portrait in Toronto [336] [337], which was copied several times since the 18th century (D80, D82, D83), and which features different facial features when compared to the portraits from the first type. The Toronto portrait is not signed, but the mezzotint that was made after it is inscribed F. Hals pinxit and VvVinne Fec [338]. This much less artistic portrait-print was long believed to have been made by Van de Vinne in an attempt to widely circulate the portrait that Hals had painted of him. This assumption is supported by a reference to a painting by Frans Hals in the 1668 inventory of Van der Vinnne’s property.²¹ It is possible that Van der Vinne once indeed owned the Toronto portrait, but it is hard to imagine that such an adept artist would have actually recognized his own likeness in the mezzotint. Since the print has long been regarded as the sitter’s own creation, it is now attributed more convincingly to his grandson Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne II (1686-1742). The painted portrait of Van de Vinnen in Toronto was formerly catalogued as a late work by Frans Hals himself, yet it has nothing in common with his otherwise so precise technique and observation of facial expressions. The look in the eyes is dull, there is no active, directed gaze which we otherwise encounter in the center of the energetic faces of Hals’s sitters. This means that we are dealing with a painting that was executed by an assistant in the workshop from the late 1650s, possibly the son Frans II.

To summarize the overview of possible assistants for Hals: they can be considered to have been involved in the creation of products in the Hals workshop during different periods of time, though not exclusively as the only painters working there. They include: Jan Hals between 1635 and 1652, Reynier Hals between 1645 and 1654, Claes Hals between c. 1646 and 1655, Pieter van Roestraeten between 1646 and 1651, Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne from 1646 to 1647. These artist must have known each other and could have also worked together. Above all, this group most likely includes the makers of the genre paintings, such as the numerous pictures of musicians and fisherchildren. But who assisted Frans Hals after 1655? There is no written source that confirms it, but only one artist is eligible: his son Frans the Younger. Little is known about him, except his main life dates: he was baptized on 16 May 1618 and buried on 12 April 1669. Since he moved out of his parental home after his marriage to Hester Jans van Groenevelt (dates unknown) on 29 November 1643, he seems to have lived there until that date. In the few preserved documents, the signature of the younger Frans Hals appears as FH without ligature.²² Slive was correct when he wrote of a ‘shadowy figure’ in his critique of my attributions to Frans Hals II.²³

Nevertheless, the contender from whom this shadow emanates was an individual with documentary evidence, a Haarlem painter who lived and worked in close proximity to Frans Hals I. There cannot be a positive argument for his involvement in his father’s workshop based on verified works, because there is nothing which would be clearly attributable to Frans Hals II by means of a separate signature. But there is a group of works which is closely related to Frans the Elder for which Frans the Younger is the prime candidate. The fact that he was a painter active in Haarlem but without his own studio and without a designated oeuvre strongly argues in favor of his assistant’s role in his father’s workshop. In the list of members of the Haarlem guild of St Luke he does actually appear several times.²⁴ He is defined as a historical person in a historical place, and from the period when he was there, a stock of unattributed similar ‘Halsian’ works exists.

333
Detail of: Vincent Laurensz. Van der Vinne (I)
Self-portrait, 1651
Haarlem, Frans hals Museum

334
Detail of cat.no. D93
Leendert van der Cooghen
Portrait of Vincent Laurensz. Van der Vinne (I), early 1660s
Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett der Staaltichen Museen zu Berlin

335
Etienne Ficquet after Leendert van der Cooghen
Portrait of Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne I (1628-1702), 1753-1763
The Hague, RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis (Collectie Iconografisch Bureau)

336
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne, c. 1658-1660
canvas, oil paint, 64.7 x 48.9 cm
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, inv.no. 54/32
Photo: © AGO
cat.no. A4.3.47