RKD STUDIES

Around 1627, Hals created an unusual marriage portrait [9]. A man and a woman are seated on an earth mound before a backdrop of trees. The woman is smiling and her husband has a distinctly cheerful expression with an open mouth [10]. Such emotional expressions were unusual in portraits of persons of rank at the time, as they ran counter to good manners. Consequently, this depiction was intended for private rather than official display. In this type of representation there is nevertheless an obvious contrast of roles between the affectionate and attached woman and the gentleman proudly presenting himself, which is typical for the era. The woman’s hand placed on her husband’s shoulder displays the engagement and wedding rings on her index finger – depicted through a cadence of brushstrokes which suggest a softly flowing movement [11]. Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa (1586-1643) is dressed up in the French fashion as an elegant man of the world and takes up a dominant position in the foreground. Still, Hals’s painting gives a stronger effect to the appearance of the woman. Her position in the center of the composition and the emphasis created by her white ruff ensure that the focus is entirely on her face. The detailed symbolical program of the double portrait suggests that it was based on a well-considered concept. Hals may have presented designs for the scenery, but hardly more than that. Eddy de Jongh already underlined the priority of the patron in his detailed analysis: ‘Obviously, responsibility for the iconographical program of the wedding portrait must be attributed to the patron rather than the painter. It is well-known that patrons typically commented on or gave instructions regarding the content of the portrait to be executed. [...] With regard to learning, Frans Hals must have accepted Massa’s superiority, since his own oeuvre generally made only economical use of symbolical elements’.¹

9
and Pieter de Molijn Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa (1586-1643) and Beatrix van der Laen (1592-1639), c. 1627
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-A-133
cat.no. A2.8

The same lesser responsibility applies to the painter of the landscape, which fills almost half the picture plane and can be interpreted as a ‘Garden of Love’ [12]. This is an allegorical concept, not a view of an existing landscape park. This imaginative addition differs from Hals’s style. Its execution was assigned to a painter specialized in landscapes who can be identified as Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), a fellow member of the Haarlem guild. His style can be identified in the areas of the trees and the figures of promenading figures in the middle- and background. A drawing of an elegant couple by Pieter de Molijn, dated by Beck to 1625-1626, may be connected to the preparations for the present painting [13]. The overgrown arbors depicted in the park’s background are similar in shape as those executed in the present ‘Garden of Love’. For further comparison, one could refer to the trees in the dated paintings in the National Gallery Dublin (1625) and the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig (1626).² These feature leaf shapes that are typical for Molijn, the smaller ones created by pressing down a frayed flat brush in a manner that is more stamped than painted [14] [15], and sometimes by dabbing the dry front edge of a flat brush [16] [17]. Once this trademark style of the second participant has been recognized, and compared with his works from the same period, it suddenly become noticeable in other works by Hals and his workshop, but also in the 1627 Garden party by Dirck Hals (1591-1656) of which the full upper half was executed by Molijn [18]. There, we can observe larger leaves which still retain the same stamped-like appearance, but which are applied with separate strokes of a flatly applied pointed brush [19] [20] [21]. Additionally, in the present double portrait, the difference between Molijn’s tree backdrop and an area of foliage clearly rendered by Hals himself becomes apparent [22].

A glance at details is especially instructive if we consider the symbolical meanings that are attached to them. In the case of the double portrait of Massa and his wife, the tree with a vine tendril clinging to it is a sign of love, attachment and friendship, as De Jongh explained comprehensively.³ Both the lighting and the manner of painting separate this area from the flatter and more uniform execution of the remaining background which can be attributed to De Molijn. The latter’s part also includes the other plants, like the large spear thistle on the left edge of the composition – formerly known in popular German usage as ‘Männertreu’ – a symbol of marital fidelity, and the ivy trail on the ground on the right, another attribute of love and fidelity. In front of this shaded backdrop in generally muted colors, the brightly lit heads and hands of the two sitters stand out, but also the illuminated tree trunk above them. This effect is created with vigorously applied impasto brushstrokes. Such an effective improvisation can only be attributed to Frans Hals and constitutes his only surviving still life, apart from the rose at the feet of the slightly earlier Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen (A2.6) [23] [24].

22
Detail of fig. 9
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, c. 1627
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

It has often been noted that the composition of the Massa double portrait may have been inspired by Peter Paul Rubens’s (1577-1640) full-length self-portrait with Isabella Brant (1591-1626).⁴ Hals could have seen this painting when he visited Antwerp in 1616. However, the composition of the present double portrait is closer to pastoral scenes – encounters of amorous shepherds and shepherdesses in idyllic landscapes. One prominent commission for such a depiction was given by the stadtholder Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) to the Utrecht painter Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656). The subject was to be princess Granida with the shepherd Daifilo, an amorous couple from the since 1615 much-performed play Granida by Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft (1581-1647). The painting, which was completed in Utrecht in 1625, was intended for Frederik Hendrik’s country house Honselaarsdijk [25]. The composition of this brilliant work, and especially the motif of the tree behind the figures, lit from the left at an angle, are so close to Hals’s double portrait that a coincidence seems unlikely [26] [27]. This means that Hals probably visited Honthorst’s workshop in 1625, where he was able to see the painting. This event would create a terminus post quem for Hals’s Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa and Beatrix van der Laen. The style of the faces, as well as the fashion of the attire fit in with the period of 1626-1627 and not 1622 – the wedding year of the couple which was suggested by De Jongh as a probable date for the painting, and was repeated in subsequent literature.⁵

25
Gerard van Honthorst
Granida and Daifilo, dated 1625
Utrecht, Centraal Museum, inv./cat.nr. 5571