RKD STUDIES

Oil on panel, 94.5 x 70.3 cm, inscribed, dated and monogrammed center right: AETAT SVAE 44/ AN° 1638 / FH
Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, inv.no. 77
Pendant to A1.92

As with most of Hals’s sitters, personal elements are added to the official representation in this pair of portrait of a gentleman and his wife (A1.92). The man’s amicable turn towards the viewer is combined with polite reserve. ‘In a gesture of honesty and affirmation, the sitter puts his right hand on his heart, while his left presents a status symbol, the leather gloves, in a careless and almost casual manner’.¹

Oil on panel, 94.5 x 70.2 cm, inscribed, dated and monogrammed center left: AETAT SVAE 44/ AN° 1638 / FH
Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, inv.no. 78
Pendant to A1.91

The cheerful expression of the depicted woman seems to be based on an amicable interrupted conversation with her husband, to whom her upper body is turned. It should be noted that dendrochronological examination has confirmed a connection between both panels and matches with their date of 1638.²

Oil on canvas, 85.5 x 67.5 cm, inscribed and dated center right: AETAT SVAE 3(8?) / AN 1638
São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, MASP.00185
Pendant to A1.94

Andries van der Horn (1600-1677) served several terms as an alderman in the town council of Haarlem, he was active as a lay judge and served three terms in office as one of Haarlem’s mayors. Hals first painted him in his role as a captain of the Calivermen civic guard in the group portrait of 1632/1633 (A2.10). Van der Horn kept this office for two further terms: 1636-1639 and 1642-1645. Subsequently he served as colonel between 1648 and 1651. From 1658 to 1677 he also was a director of the Dutch West India Company. After the death of his first wife he married Maria Pietersdr. Olycan (1607-1655) on 25 July 1638 and joined this powerful Haarlem family that had already provided Hals with several portrait commissions (A1.17, A1.18, A3.25). The wedding was most likely the occasion for the commission of the present pair of portraits, that were executed in the same year. Like other Olycan portraits, this one bears a brightly colored coat of arms in the upper left corner, that was added later. Perhaps the portraits with this mark once hung in the same room together, or formed an extensive gallery of family portraits.

The sitter leans on his stick in a commanding manner and expresses his self-perception as an important decision-maker through his skeptically raised eyebrows and pursed lower lip. There may also be a hint of impatience. A portrait-historical peculiarity in this respect, is the portrait of Van der Horn that was painted in 1662 by Jan de Braij (c.1626/27- 1697)[1].³ It is identical in format to Hals' painting, which was executed 24 years earlier. In addition, it depicts the sitter in the same pose, same lateral rotation, and same lighting. The comparison of the two portraits allows a rare insight into the observational style of two different Haarlem portraitists, and likewise provides a clear image of the model’s distinctive features.

1
Jan de Braij
Portrait of Andries van der Horn (1600-1677), dated 1662
Luxembourg, Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art

Oil on canvas, 83.5 x 68.5 cm
São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, MASP.00186
Pendant to A1.93

With respect to this picture, Slive noted that it is difficult to explain why some pendants remained without any inscription or coat of arms. His assumption cannot be dismissed that in cases where there is only one of the pair which bears an inscription and/or coat of arms, these may sometimes be later additions.⁴

The portrait of Maria Pietersdr. Olycan (1607-1655) may be conventional in posture, but with her determined and open gaze and an uncomplicated amicable expression, Hals captured a settled personality, with a character that was probably more even-tempered and pleasant than her husband’s. She was the daughter of Pieter Jacobsz. Olycan (1572-1658) (A3.25, A3.32) and the sister of several of Hals’s sitters in single and group portraits.

Oil on canvas, 86 x 69 cm
Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv.no. 1937.1.68

On the basis of the scientific examination that was concluded in 1991, several issues could be resolved with regard to this picture, that had long been covered by discolored varnish. As the research showed, the background landscape is part of the original composition, yet it is unclear who painted it. Hals himself may have inserted this view towards a wooded evening landscape, or he could have had it inserted by another artist. Analysis of the structure of the canvas did not indicate any changes to the original size, so the hand that is cut off by the lower edge if the picture plance was planned as such.

The friendly gentleman turns towards the viewer, wearing a fashionable hairstyle and expensive clothes. He is dressed in a cuirass with an orange sash that identifies him as a member of a civic guard company. However, he is not included in the 1639 group portrait of the Haarlem St George civic guard (A2.12). And since a group portrait of the Calivermen civic guard from the same period has never been realized, the present portrait cannot be considered to have been created as preparation for a Haarlem group portrait, as I had still assumed in 1989 – pointing out the similarity with Hals’s self-portraits.⁵ Therefore, it could only have been a separate commission for private use, like the portraits of the Nachtglas brothers (A1.59, A1.60, A1.61).

Dudok van Heel recently suggested an identification based on the prominent military character if this portrait. Such a manner of representation was not arbitrary in Hals’s time, since ‘in Hals’s day in Haarlem cuirasses were no longer painted in civic guard portrait. Unlike in the civic guards of Haarlem and Amsterdam, cuirasses remained in use in the State Army [...]’.⁶ The wearer of such a breastplate could just be one such meritorious person, that is, Jan Soop the Younger (1602-1655). He was appointed captain of a company of 250 Waargelders in October 1628 in Amsterdam. This was an unequivocal military position, in contrast to a part-time presence in a Haarlem civic guard company. Dudok van Heel points to the massive confrontations between the political factions of the Remonstrants and the Calvinists, which prompted the city of Amsterdam to appoint a third company of mercenaries called Waardgelders. Just like his father, who is probably depicted in the 1637 portrait in São Paulo (A1.83), Jan Soop the Younger is mentioned as a sitter for Hals in the 1661 inventory of Willem Schrijver (1608-1661), a nephew and heir of property from the Soop family. The reference reads: ‘a portrait of the old captain Soop by Frans Hals and another one of the young Jan Soop, also by Hals’.⁷ The two portraits are mentioned as located in the ante room of the first floor in Schrijvers House no. 210 on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. They were not conceived as pendants, but their size corresponds largely (today 88 x 66 cm and 86 x 69 cm), suggesting a matching frame and hanging.

Stylistically, the present picture differs from the stronger movement that is visible in Jan Soop the Elder’s portrait of 1637 (A1.83). It is closer to the calm poses and softer modelled heads and hands in the Rotterdam Portrait of a man [2] and the Portrait of a man in the Swedish Royal Collections, dated 1638 (A1.89). Based on Dudok van Heel’s suggestion of a connection with the portrait commission by Jan Soop the Elder, a possible date of 1638 for the present painting would thus be plausible. In that case, both pictures would not have been painted in Amsterdam but in Haarlem, where the Soop family owned property and had close relatives.

A1.95
Photo courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

2
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of a man, c. 1637-1638
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 1276
cat.no. A1.86

A1.96 see: A3.33

Oil on canvas, 69.5 x 58 cm
Whereabouts unknown

The portrait of this lively-looking lady with slightly parting lips was probably adapted later to the popular motif of a half-length sitter depicted within a feigned oval frame. The position of the arms and the hands is broadly similar to Portrait of a woman in the National Gallery (A1.98), and appear arbitrarily cut off by the frame. The pronounced craquelure somewhat reduces the fresh impression of the painting. As noted by Slive, all four edges were probably cut down.⁸ The picture has not been seen since the theft on the night of 9-10 February 1972.

A1.97

Oil on canvas, 61.4 x 47 cm, monogrammed lower left: FH
London, National Gallery, inv.no. NG1021

This painting’s canvas was trimmed along both vertical sides and along the lower edge. Based on the visible traces of folding edges, the visible surface was at some time even reduced to 59.5 x 44 cm. The character study of a suspicious-looking middle-aged woman is confidently done, with seemingly loose brushwork in the plump hands as well as in the softly rounded face.

A1.98

Oil on canvas, 120 x 95 cm
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, inv.no. WRM 2529
Pendant to A1.100

The picture is much damaged in parts, both in the lit as in the shaded side of the face, with broad retouchings that cover parts of the nose, the cheeks, the moustache and mouth. The man’s proper right hand was also over-retouched. Strips of canvas have been added to the lower and left edge. An FH monogram was reported to the left of the sitter, yet is no longer legible today. Based on the similarity in technique and composition with the female counterpart, dated 1640 (A1.100), an identical date can be assumed.

The previously unknown estate inventory of Geertruijt Gerrits van Santen (1605/1610-1675), which was drawn up in 1676, lists three portraits by Frans Hals.⁹ Two of those match with the present picture and its pendant, and the third, depicting Geertruijt’s father, may be identical to the 1640 Portrait of a man in the Frans Hals Museum (A3.35). An auction catalogue of 1830 describes the portraits of Nicolaes Noppen (1600/1605-1657) and his wife Geertruijt as life-size.¹⁰

Noppen was a Haarlem brewer. Both him and his wife were Mennonites, which corresponds to the clothing and austere hairstyle in the two portraits in Cologne. A closely related representation with regard to both bearing and clothing can be found in the Portrait of Lucas de Clercq (A1.42) and the Portrait of Feyntje van Steenkiste (A1.72A), who also were Mennonites.

Oil on canvas, 120 x 94.5 cm, inscribed, dated and monogrammed upper left: AETA. SVAE 32/AN° 1640 /FH
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, inv.no. WRM 2530
Pendant to A1.99

Overall, this female counterpart is better preserved than its pendant, and shows a subtly graduating modelling in both hands and the fine-featured face. The clarity of the features, especially of the eyes and mouth, constitutes an important benchmark against which most female portraits of the 1640s fall short – which therefore supports their attribution to assistants in Hals’s workshop.