RKD STUDIES

We need to accept that the question ‘painted by Frans Hals or not?’ has become obsolete in front of the surviving paintings. Rather, an assessment needs to be made in two steps: in whose workshop was the painting conceived and how much of it is autograph by the master in charge? The answer to these questions requires clarification of the close-up observations of the paintings and the ability to zoom in into photographs of the artworks can be helpful in this. Nevertheless, the decisive factor is the concept a viewer has developed of a master’s individual way of working. It is not feasible to attend a specialist seminar before each viewing of a painting. Yet it is possible to seek references to depictions of similar motifs with high-level execution and the best possible state of preservation. Such ‘benchmark’ works can form a basis for a more accurate attribution. While such points of reference suitable for comparison are often kept in distant locations all over the world, their reproductions often being out of focus, and one’s personal memory of details being increasingly unreliable, luckily, today a substantial part of an artist’s oeuvre can be displayed in high resolution on a computer screen anywhere.

129
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Dorothea Berck (1593-1684), dated 1644
Baltimore (Maryland), Baltimore Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 1938.231
cat.no. A1.112
Photo: Mitro Hood

Just how expressive and confident Frans Hals was in his creative work can best be demonstrated in comparison, be it of entire compositions or of smaller details of painterly execution. If we remain within the arena of indisputable chefs-d’oeuvre, we encounter figures conceived with the strictest anatomical accuracy in clearly defined standing or sitting positions, with equally unequivocal proportions and positioning of their arms [129][144][145]. This is not the case with the pair in Edinburgh [130][131]. The body proportions of the woman with her overly long arms hardly bear imagining. In contrast, the two vigorously modelled faces and the lively expression of the woman convey much of Hals’s typical approach. It seems therefore likely to assume a design by his own hand, or the use of a finished facial study which was transferred to the larger final scale. Observation of the details and comparison with other relevant paintings can be useful in these considerations.

Hals’s skills in representation followed his pictorial concept. His ability to apply these with a confident gaze and a light touch was beyond the understanding of his assistants and imitators. Neither did they share his sensitivity for typical shapes of appearance or his ability to decide where an emphasis was to be placed. Consequently, even the shapes of representation differ, and, even more so, the emphasizing accents. Hals’s highly proficient rendering of a subject – anatomy, proportions, shortening, observation of light and shadow – forms a solid foundation for his powerful visual perception. The coherence of his autograph manner of execution is not achieved in those works which he delegated partly or entirely. This becomes especially clear in the faces, but also in the second most important area of portraiture, that of the hands and gloves. In those areas, we find a repertoire of gestures that was formed and appreciated in the 17th century.

For the following chapter, I have selected three paintings that were generally accepted as autograph works by Frans Hals, but where deviations from the core of entirely autograph executions can be discerned. They were created between 1644 and 1650 and depict distinguished personages either standing or sitting, half- or three-quarter-length. With regard to a benchmark, they are preceded by an overall well preserved work of the highest quality of execution: the 1644 Portrait of Dorothea Berck at the age of 51 [129]. It is followed by three female portraits from the same period, wearing similar clothing, which are also stylistically related [131][132][133]. All four paintings are also consistent in having a male portrait as their counterpart. This is visible in their slight sideways turn and in three of them in the symbolism of the hands: one wearing a glove and one bare hand. Since the pendants are also preserved in all cases – although only indirectly for one, via a watercolor copy from the late 18th century (D68) – it is also possible to verify the observations from the female portraits through close inspection of each pendant.

132
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of a seated woman holding a fan, c. 1650
canvas, oil paint, 109.5 x 82.5 cm
Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art, inv.no. 1931.455
cat.no. A4.3.30
Courtesy Taft Museum of Art, Tony Walsh Photography

133
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of a lady with gloves, c. 1650
canvas, oil paint, 98.2 x 80 cm
Private collection, on loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
cat.no. A4.3.37

To create an impression of a human being in such a three-dimensional way that the person appears real to the viewer, to generate a rhythmical interplay of lines, and to focus all the attention on the facial features: these must have been the motivations for Frans Hals when he came to an agreement with his sitter Dorothea Berck. In her portrait, the white panels of the wide collar create a clear shape which forms an effective frame for the face while simultaneously and just as clearly directing the viewer’s gaze towards the sitter’s hands. In the simple and clear representation of the glove and cuffs, a delicate interplay of white and light grey hues emerges [134]. This effect to some extent echoed in the Portrait of an unknown woman with gloves [135], but the conciseness of the three-dimensional shape is lacking there. The hand and glove are hardly modelled. Instead, they are surrounded by sharp, intermittent contours. The color effect of the skin tone next to the glove reappears, but without the sense of modelling through lighting. The hands are more colorful in the Portrait of Maria de Haen [136], but they are also modelled only vaguely, surrounded by short contour lines instead. The creamy paint application is not arranged in specific directions as in the Berck portrait. In this way, it recalls certain bold creations by Hals, where the brushstrokes develop a life of their own while being carefully calculated and partly remaining associated with the surfaces that are represented. The unknown woman’s long, thin gloved hand – which resembles a duck’s neck – must however be excluded from Hals’s oeuvre, even as a design. The hands in the Cincinnati Portrait of a seated woman holding a fan [137] are also anatomically tentative and flat. They are surrounded by a contour line of uniform width with several changes in direction. In order to better understand the anatomically awkward and hesitant manner of depiction of the hands described here, one would also like to know how the sitter’s face and costume have been executed. Additionally, one would want to comprehensively examine the deviation from Hals’s style and the individual character of the manner of painting in the other examples. This can be done with the use of detailed photographs. The comparison of similarities and differences is focused here on the central part of the face: from the eyebrows down to the tip of the nose, including the nose’s shadow. Here, the most concentrated juxtaposition of the pictures in question is possible, since all four faces are turned to the left, and lit in the same way [138][139][140][141].

What sets Hals apart is his impressive representation of facial features and expression. In this, he succeeded by side-lighting the facial plane and by enhancing the contrasts of light and shadow to generate an emphasis on the relatively subtle creases and bulges of the face. This enhancement requires an appropriate setting of the lighting which must be captured plausibly overall. Grey and black shadows in the middle of a face can be perceived under certain circumstances, but they require a credible capturing of transitions, locating accurately what is relatively brightest and darkest as well as every stage in between. Looking at the four details of the female portraits’ faces shows the paradigm of such nuance in the face of Dorothea Berck [138], while the other faces display more abrupt and coarse dark contours. Here, the requirement of facial recognition outweighed the observation of visual conditions, or the execution was only done on the basis of a summary sketch in the absence of the sitter, so that the eye sockets appear flat and the shadow from the nasal root upwards stands out as a black edge. Another characteristic is the result of hesitancy on the part of the executing assistants. In the portrait of Dorothea Berck, Hals defined most detailed shapes with soft brushstrokes in subtly balanced tonal shades. This loose, ‘handwritten’ character is lacking in the three workshop portraits. Their executions are recognizable as superficial rendering of facial features, without a characteristic brushstroke. They differ widely in style and were therefore probably all created by different hands. Nevertheless they are works in the style of Hals, made under his supervision and based on his compositional design. The representation of the faces was based on his sketches either directly on the canvas or as separate preparatory studies.

In view of the divergence from Hals’s brilliance it was presumed on various occasions that the workshop products were later imitations or deliberate forgeries. For example, the restorer Maurits Michel van Dantzig (1903-1960) published the pendant portraits of a married couple in the Taft Museum as ‘moderne vervalschingen’ in 1940 (A4.3.29, A4.3.30).¹ The critique was rebutted directly with good reason.² However, the difference in execution is a fact which does not only concern these two works. In his book Frans Hals: echt of onecht of 1937, Van Dantzig was the first critic to suggest the rejection of many attributions to Hals. Out of the 116 paintings exhibited in Haarlem in 1937, he only accepted 33 as unequivocally by the master, and a further five with some doubt. The question about the origin of the eliminated pictures remained unanswered. Based on the current state of knowledge, the works which are ‘Halsian’ yet different from Hals’s autograph manner are to a large extent historically documented creations, often with autograph signatures, which can only have been made in the Hals workshop. There is no vague ‘circle’ and there are no Hals followers in the 17th or 18th centuries. The reason was that Hals’s sketchy style was not greatly appreciated for a long time. Many of his contemporaries and later critics until the 19th century regarded his manner of execution as peculiar and even unfinished.³ Due to the unaccommodating character of Hals’s manner of representation, art historical research is in the comfortable position of having to deal with imitations and forgeries only from 1860 onwards, which can also be proven more easily because of modern painting materials. While some copies were made prior to 1860, these were prompted by the identity of the depicted sitters – for portraits – or by the accurate representation of specific characters – for genre paintings. But it was never about the master Frans Hals, be it in the art trade or in exhibitions or museums. Neither did a following of Hals’s style develop in the Netherlands in the 17th century, much unlike Rembrandt or the fijnschilders from Leiden. This means that Hals ‘imitations’ only occurred during his lifetime and only in Haarlem. There was a limited clientele which was indeed serviced by the students and assistants of Hals.

Now let us return to the benchmarks. For the portraits of the couple Wouters-De Haen from c. 1643-1644 [130][131], there is another opportunity for comparison at the very core of Hals’s oeuvre: the portrait of François Wouters (1600-1661) in the group portrait Regents of St Elisabeth’s Hospital of 1641 (A1.102) [142]. The convincing identification was only made recently and is so compelling in the precise observation of facial features that some explanation must be found for the different color in moustache and beard which does not call the overall result into doubt.⁴ The tips of the beard standing peculiarly in mid-air to the right above the upper lip look like the beginning of an abandoned execution of a black moustache similar to that of 1641 [143]. Conversely, the flat brown moustache area may be part of the initial sketch of the face, as can also be seen in the underdrawing of the left eyebrow. I cannot explain the contrast-rich modelling of the facial features in any other way than it being based on a precisely detailed, colored design by Hals. When preparing a portrait measuring 115 x 86 cm, it seems logical that a sketch of the face would be made on a scale not larger than a sketchpad, which is manageable in size. This model would be transferred in a Hals-like style, with short brushstrokes. The comparison of the eyebrows, the lines of the eyelids, the shadow of the nose, and the line of the mouth shows hesitant, intermittent brushwork in the individual portrait, even though the coloring and brushstrokes follow the model. Instead of a single clear line, there are four or five. The somewhat flickering, shaky paint application contributes to the sad and startled facial expression which is determined by the raised eyebrows. Instead, the expression in the face of 1641 is collected, in a face represented through large surfaces and great clarity. Since Frans Hals painted several male portraits as standing three-quarter-length figures in this period – whose execution and state of preservation places them at the core of his oeuvre [144][145] – I also illustrate several details of the costume, hands and gloves from these portraits [146][147] for comparison. The execution in the single portrait of Wouters resembles the models by Hals but is also hesitant and vague in shape. It displays tentatively and softly modelled folds in the clothing [148], which differs strongly from Hals’s rhythmically moving contours that generate a tension between the symbolical and esthetical in his Portrait of Adriaen van Ostade [149].

138
Detail of fig. 129
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Dorothea Berck, 1644
Baltimore Museum of Art
photograph by Mitro Hood

139
Detail of fig. 131
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of Maria de Haen, c. 1643-1644
Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland

140
Detail of fig. 132
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of a seated woman holding a fan, c. 1650
Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art
Courtesy Taft Museum of Art, Tony Walsh Photography

141
Detail of fig. 133
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of a lady with gloves, c. 1650
Private collection, on loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

142
Detail of cat.no. A1.102
Frans Hals (I)
Regents of St Elisabeth’s Hospital, c. 1640-1641
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum

143
Detail of fig. 130
Frans Hals (I) and workshop, possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of François Wouters, c. 1643-1644
Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland

144
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Paulus Verschuur (1606-1667), dated 1643
New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 26.101.11
cat.no. A1.107

145
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685), c. 1645
Washington (D.C.), National Gallery of Art (Washington), inv./cat.nr. 1937.1.70
cat.no. A1.113

146
Details of:
fig. 130, Frans Hals (I) and workshop, possibly Frans Hals (II), Portrait of François Wouters, c. 1643-1644, Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland
fig. 144, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Paulus Verschuur, 1643, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
fig. 145, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Adriaen van Ostade, c. 1645, Washington, National Gallery of Art

147
Details of:
fig. 145, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Adriaen van Ostade, c. 1645, Washington, National Gallery of Art
fig. 130, Frans Hals (I) and workshop, possibly Frans Hals (II), Portrait of François Wouters, c. 1643-1644, Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland

Without doubt, the most outstanding of Hals’s paintings from the late 1640s must be the three-quarter-length Portrait of Isabella Coymans [150][151]. If we take this artwork as a benchmark, the rendering of the face [152][153], hands [154][155], and costume should be considered to be an exception of incredible confidence and effortlessness. This is similar to the small-scale portraits, among which the Portrait of Jean de la Chambre (1605-1668) (A1.87), created as a modello by Hals himself, stands out far above the others.

The experience of viewing the portraits by Frans Hals, which are always slightly abstracted from the superficial impression of reality, is a phenomenon which can only be understood when looking at the well-preserved and autograph creations. Hals’s focus on a few salient elements, on the visual qualities of appearance, and the seemingly effortless characterization marks the difference with the works of his assistants. It is precisely the sparse and subtly sketchy style of painting that distinguishes contributions by the master from the aimless and less disciplined brushwork of assistants and imitators.

150
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Isabella Coymans (?-1689), c. 1646-1648
Private collection
cat.no. A1.120

151
Detail of fig. 150
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Isabella Coymans, c. 1646-1648
private collection

152
Details of:
fig. 150, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Isabella Coymans, c. 1646-1648, private collection
fig. 132, workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II), Portrait of a seated woman holding a fan, c. 1650, Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art

153
Details of:
fig. 131, Frans Hals (I) and workshop, Portrait of Maria de Haen, c. 1643-1644, Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland
fig. 133, workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II), Portrait of a lady with gloves, c. 1650, private collection, on loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

154
Detail of fig. 150
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of Isabella Coymans, c. 1646-1648
private collection

155
Detail of cat.no. A4.3.19
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of a family, c. 1645-1648
London, National Gallery