RKD STUDIES

Oil on canvas, 175 x 324 cm, dated lower left: 1616¹
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, inv.no. OS I-109

This group portrait was Hals's first major commission, and with it, he made his mark within the tradition of civic guard portraiture in Haarlem. Hals had to compete with the town's established portrait painters, especially Frans Pietersz de Grebber (1573-1649) and Cornelis Engelsz. (1574/1575-1650), who worked on comparable multi-figure compositions during the same period.² Hals’s artistic innovation in the present painting lay in the astonishing authenticity with which he achieved to represent a ceremony where the hierarchy of the participants, their positioning and their individual appearance were mostly predetermined. In addition, the depiction of these people was defined by their self-conception as representatives of the town's elite.

Traditionally, there were two civic guards in Haarlem, the St George civic guard the arquebusiers or cluveniers under the patron saint of St Adrian. In 1611 both were increased to three companies each. The officers were chosen by the municipal authorities from members of Haarlem’s most prestigious families, with a service period of three years. When a term ended, the town organized a banquet and commissioned a group portrait, serving as a memorial image for the persons of rank. In the case of this group portrait from 1616, the officers that served from 1612 to 1615 are depicted – a period which coincides with the years in which Frans Hals was a member of St George's civic guard – he served as a musketeer from 1612 to 1624.

The identification of the sitters was unclear for a long time, because a name plate and corresponding numbering have not been added to the painting in the 18th century – unlike Hals’s other civic guard portraits. Van Valkenburg, however, was able to identify the men on the basis of 18th-century archival records.³ They can be identified as:

1. Hendrick van Berckenrode (c. 1565-1634), colonel
2. Johan van Napels (1556-1630), provost
3. Nicolaes Woutersz. van der Meer (1574-1637), captain
4. Vechter Jansz. van Teffelen (1563-1619), captain
5. Jacob Laurensz. (c. 1560-1631), captain
6. Hugo Mattheusz. Steyn (1577-1632), lieutenant
7. Cornelis Jacobsz. Schout († after 1627), lieutenant
8. Pieter Adriaensz. Verbeek (c. 1575-1637), lieutenant
9. Gerrit Cornelisz. Vlasman, ensign
10. Jacob Cornelisz. Schout (c. 1590- after 1627), ensign
11. Boudewijn van Offenberch (1590- after 1627), ensign
12. Servant [1]

Hals structured his composition by a clear framework of diagonally rising and falling bright streaks of flags, sashes and collars. In between these pools of light, he placed heads and hands against a dark background. While the body postures remain still, some hands are in movement; all impulses for movement are concentrated in the expressive features. The facial colors appear enhanced, and the brushwork in the illuminated elements of the clothing appears partly detached from surface representation. The group portrait captures a typical moment of latent spontaneous activity – immediately before the official banquet for which the group has gathered.

While Hals focused on the representation of individual characters, he nevertheless discreetly included several symbolic references. These include the hierarchical seating arrangement from left to right, the gestures and ritual actions, as well as the cutting of the roast by captain Van Teffelen (4). Further predefined details are the sashes of the guardsmen, the two guild banners and the two halberds on the back wall to the right, the sumptuously woven tablecloth which was reserved for the occasion, and the table setting with olives, bread and pieces of meat. The arrangement with the glasses, drinks and the knife balancing on the edge in the center of the table conveyed the importance of this banquet.

A painting of this size raises the question of how the individual portraits were made and included in the composition. It is likely that Hals made individual preparatory studies of faces and hands in close-up on paper or parchment, which were inserted into the picture by himself or an able assistant. This insertion was achieved with an almost uncanny accuracy of proportion (the majority of contemporary group paintings by Hals’s colleagues from Haarlem and Amsterdam show perceptible discrepancies). Nevertheless, individual comparison show differences in quality, probably because both Hals and an assistant contributed to the transfer of the studies onto the final canvas. The painterly outline, created on the basis of the study, was worked-up by Hals in varying degrees, so that his brushwork is ironically barely perceptible in the portrait of the highest-ranking member, Colonel van Berckenrode (1). In addition, his face and hand suffered most from later cleaning and retouching [2][3]. All other faces show Hals’s striking emphases; his brushwork appears most clearly in the heads in the center and the right hand side of the composition. The color accents in the face of ensign Jacob Cornelisz. Schout, left of center (10) [4], his colleagues standing outer right (9, 11) [5] [6] and the two lieutenants seated behind the table (6, 7) [7][8] are unthinkable without a previous encounter with the work of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) in Antwerp. The landscape as seen through the window in the background, with its greenish-brown tone and the evenly rendered round leaves, displays an independent manner which differs from the style of the Hals workshop. The colors, as well as the shape of the foliage and branches, connect this part of the painting to the Haarlem landscape painter Cornelis Vroom (c. 1591-1661).

Two anonymous chalk drawings after the composition are preserved in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. One of them bears the date 1720 on the back and shows a composition that is larger on the right, whilst a horizontal strip is missing on the top (D78). This suggests that the original group portrait may have been cut down on the right by approximately 25 cm.

In the literature, Anne van Grevenstein, Norbert Middelkoop and Koos Levy-van Halm give an overview of the history of the present painting’s storage, preservation and restoration, and they discuss the most recent restoration that took place June to December 1986.⁴ An illustration shown by Grevenstein and Middelkoop provides a striking demonstration of a fact pertaining to all pictures from past centuries: the irreversible changes in color, which lead to an overall darker and more contrasting impression, while delicate transitions have faded and certain colors have disappeared completely, such as the copper green of the curtain on the left which became reddish brown.⁵

A2.0

1
Schematic representation of cat.no. A2.0

2
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Hendrick van Berckenrode (1)

3
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the hand of Hendrick van Berckenrode (1)

4
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Jacob Cornelisz. Schout (10)

5
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Gerrit Cornelisz. Vlasman (9)

6
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Boudewijn van Offenberch (11)

7
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Cornelis Jacobsz. Schout (7)

8
detail of cat.no. A2.0, the head of Hugo Mattheusz. Steyn (6)

Oil on canvas, 139.5 x 102.5 cm, inscribed and dated upper right: AETAT SVAE 40/162..
Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv.no. RF 424
Pendant to A2.2

This portrait and the following are pendants that are united by stylistic and compositional elements, as well as by their provenance and identification. Both pictures come from the Hofje van Beresteyn in Haarlem, residential quarters for catholic men and women which had been founded by Claes van Beresteyn (c. 1627-1684), a son of the present sitter Paulus van Beresteyn (1588-1636). Together with the group portrait of the Beresteyn family dating from about a decade later, the pair was sold to the Louvre in 1885 for 100.000 guilders – respectively 104.950 francs. At the time of acquisition, the group portrait was attributed to Hals, today it is given to Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657).⁶ Public opinion in the Netherlands then condemned the transaction as a cultural loss, while French reactions were divided due to the high price.⁷ Damages and later corrections have blurred the inscriptions of the sitters’ ages; after consideration of the results from the scientific and technical examinations of 1988, a common date of 1620 seems most likely for both pictures. The similarities of the canvases and the ground layers, the style of painting and the clothing fashion support this. Nevertheless, substantial stylistic differences remain.

Thanks to the support of Jacques Foucart, the long-time conservator of the Louvre’s Netherlandish paintings, I was able to closely inspect the portraits of Paulus and Catharina from a ladder in their present location high on the wall. Detail-photographs taken on that occasion allowed the documentation of elements in the two pendants that differ in style. According to this, the execution of the two faces are definitely not in keeping with the style of Frans Hals. In contrast, Hals’s typical brushwork is recognizable from the collar downwards; both lace collars as well as the clothes underneath and especially the man’s hands are typical and virtuoso achievements in Hals’s confident brushstrokes. The connections between Pieter Soutman and the Beresteyn family (see below, cat.no. A2.2) suggest an attribution of the faces to this artist.⁸ In comparison to the manner of Hals, they are rendered smoother and softer. A remarkable detail are the pentimenti on the right and above the area of the man’s head, which seems to have been lowered at a later stage, perhaps in order to establish a better balance with the woman’s portrait.

It is certainly unusual and even ironical that two three-quarter length figures in expensive clothing were executed by Frans Hals, while the faces were commissioned from a colleague.

Oil on canvas, 139 x 102 cm, inscribed and dated upper left: AETAT SVAE 38/16..9
Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv.no. RF 425
Pendant to A2.1

Jacques Foucart, conservator of the Louvre’s Netherlandish paintings, was the first to recognize the Flemish character of the female portrait and suggested an attribution to Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657), who was born in Haarlem and grew up there.⁹ Around 1616 Soutman moved to Antwerp, where he trained in the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and made engravings after Rubens’s paintings. By mid-1628 he was documented in Haarlem again. Soon thereafter the group portrait of the Beresteyn family was executed.¹⁰ Soutman came from a noble Catholic family and therefore was in a position to meet the Catholic Beresteyn couple on an equal social footing. It seems reasonable indeed to suppose that he was the painter of the two Beresteyn faces, even though there are no absolutely certain comparative examples for his early portrait style. The closest similarity to the face of Catharina Both van der Eem (1589-1666) can be found in another picture, also only attributed to Soutman, the Portrait of a woman dated c. 1625 in the Saint Louis Art Museum.¹¹ The soft modelling and the comparative transparent flesh tones resemble the portrait of Catharina in the Louvre [9][10]. The execution of the faces of the women and children in the group portrait of the Beresteyn family, especially that of the girl on the lower right [11], are also close to the facial in the present picture. From today’s perspective, it seems hard to imagine that a well-known portrait painter would leave the central part of his composition to a colleague. In this instance, a temporary sojourn by Soutman in Haarlem may be an explanation. His family and relatives lived there. During such a visit he would not have had his own workshop and may only have had limited time to paint from life. Under these circumstances he could have cooperated with his colleague Hals and ceded some of his work for his prosperous clients to him.

9
Detail of cat.no. A2.2
© RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Tony Querrec

10
Detail of:
attributed to Pieter Soutman
Portrait of an unknown woman, c. 1625-1645
Saint Louis Art Museum

Oil on canvas, 151 x 163.6 cm, monogrammed lower left: FH; signed and dated lower left: S. de Bray /1628
Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, inv.no. 2011.80

A2.3

Oil on canvas, 152 x 107.5 cm
Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv.no. 4732

A2.4

Oil on canvas, 52 x 47.4 cm
Sale New York (Sotheby’s), 29 January 2020, lot no. 31

The present three paintings are fragments of a large portrait of the family of Gijsbert Claesz. Van Campen (c. 1584/1585-1645) and Maria Joris (c. 1585-1666). Originally it was an ambitious large-scale composition that probably included another group of two or three children, in addition to the three that are depicted on the fragment in Brussels (A2.4) and the boy on the other fragment which was sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2020 (A2.5). The latter fragment is the only remaining part of the right hand corner of the complete composition. In total the group portrait would have measured at least 153.5 x 332.5/333.5 cm.¹² It is unknown when or why the painting was cut into (at least) 4 pieces. Self-evidently, the grand size of the group portrait would have made it hard to sell; hanging such a large format in a private context would not have been possible for many potential buyers [12].

Until the restoration of the Brussels fragment in 2012, it was not clear where the boy leading the goat cart on the right is looking at; the peculiar way in which his proper left leg was cut off was inexplicable and had obviously been reworked later. Through the examination and cleaning of the picture by the Brussels museum conservators the original appearance was revealed. Removing earlier overpainting on the right side exposed half a face, half a collar and an arm, as well as a coral necklace and parts of a child’s clothing in the lower right corner – probably the object of the standing boy’s friendly gaze. The collar of the newly recovered female figure, identified by Biesboer as the oldest daughter of the family, continues in the third fragment which depicts a single boy (A2.5).¹³ In addition, on the left hand edge of the Brussels fragment, the restoration revealed a foot and leg of a female figure, which belong to the standing girl in the right hand side of the large fragment (A2.3). The background in all three parts aligns with each other and is recognizable as a continuation. The logic of this relationship between the depicted figures and the observation of overlapping segments of clothing visible in the x-ray had already led me to suggest the reconstruction in a 1972 publication [13].¹⁴

Biesboer succeeded in a very likely identification of the patron of this commission, leading to a plausible identification of the sitters. When researching the Haarlem archives, he found the previously undiscovered 1733 estate inventory of Agnes van Campen († 1733), which mentions a large group portrait of the family of Gijsbert Claesz. van Campen, painted by Frans Hals: ‘Een groot stuck schilderij sijnde de familie van Gijsbert Claesz. Van Campen geschilderd door Frans Hals’. Based on this documentation, the present fragments can be traced back to the descendants of the above-mentioned heiress Agnes van Campen, who was a granddaughter of the sitter who had commissioned the painting.¹⁵ The cloth merchant Gijsbert Claesz. van Campen from Leiden had married the Haarlem born Maria Joris on 10 September 1604. The dispersed historical documentation refers to three sons and a total of seven daughters from this marriage. In addition, the family may have had further members about whom no documentation survives. The youngest child seems to have been born sometime after Hals finished his composition; it was added to the portrait in 1628 by Salomon de Bray (1597-1664). In any case, the identification of the family members and the information about the children’s baptism dates permit a relatively precise date of the entire painting to c. 1623-1625.

In the remaining fragments the figures are executed for the most part in a similar style, displaying Hals’s already typically recognizable brushwork, especially in the bravura portraits he captured of the parents and the older children. The weakest part is that of the three figures on the right side of the fragment in Toledo. Here, the hands, as well as the faces of the two youngest children are only delineated in a few outlines and modelling accents, not finished to the same degree as the rest of the painting. Overall, the left part of the composition is best preserved. Unfortunately, the edges were also slightly trimmed at the top, bottom and on the left, so that the bonnet of the tallest girl and the fingers of the boy to her left touch the frame, which was certainly not intended. However, the colors of the faces and hands have been preserved above average in their intensity and in the nuances between the zones of light and shade.

The second signature on the largest fragment in Toledo (A2.3) and the date 1628 refer specifically to the lower left part with the seated small boy and identify it as the work by Frans Hals’s successful colleague, the painter and architect Salomon de Bray. The reasons for commissioning a second painter to make a later addition, are unknown and may have been banal. They did not have the weight added by today’s view which regards such a representation as a uniform artwork. The same is true with regard to a further painter who contributed the landscape background. This background is devised as a prop to form a backdrop for the figures, and was probably painted by the Haarlem landscape and figure painter Gerrit Claesz. Bleker (c. 1592/1593-1656).¹⁶ The foliage shows Bleker’s typical characteristics, such as round bunches of foliage, with the shapes of the leaves modelled in a dabbing manner with a thick round brush [14][15]. Considering the darkening which is visible in other landscape areas in works by Hals – especially that in the Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard of 1632/1633 (A2.10) – we may assume the present picture’s original appearance to have been much lighter overall and more differentiated in its three-dimensionality. The fact that the portrait was painted in the studio is indicated by the absence of recognizable outside lighting, especially in the depiction of the figures. There is only the muted light of an interior space.

The prototype for a painting of a family as a group resting outside can be found in Flemish painting. There are several models, including depictions of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt and idyllic Arcadian scenes. In this instance, the father is seated next to a stone covered in ivy. His wife leans on him and, as a mother, gestures to the surrounding group of children, reaching as far as the children with the goat cart, preserved in the Brussels fragment (A2.4). The motif of the goat cart is part of the overall allegorical concept of a group of people dwelling in Arcadian fields. Contemporary viewers were presented with a spiritual and visionary content, as was the custom for erudite paintings at the time. While there are individual portraits of the respective family members, they form a group joined by an experience of particular unity, virtue and tranquility. The parents are resting in front of a vigorous tree of life; ivy – a symbol of consistency – is wrapped around its roots. The motif of the goat cart balances out the main figure group on the left. This arrangement would recur repeatedly in Dutch painting, with examples painted by artists ranging from Jan Daemen Cool (c. 1589-1660) in 1631 to Adriaen van de Velde (1636-1672) in 1655.¹⁷ A related composition with only children in a goat cart was painted in 1654 by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680).¹⁸

Around 1620, Arcadian motifs started to appear in paintings by the Utrecht artists Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) and Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638), for example in portraits which depict the sitters as shepherd or shepherdess. However, Hals’s present painting seems to be an early and independent example of this genre. It is not clear whether the patron exerted any influence on the design of this representation. It is conceivable that for such an unprecedented large family portrait, the concept was worked out jointly by several people, perhaps also by especially learned advisors.

The composition of the present painting was followed in some unidentified family paintings from the Hals workshop which were painted during the 1640s (A4.3.19, A4.3.24), but also influenced others such as Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657) in the Beresteyn family portrait of c. 1630.¹⁹ Above all, the full-length double portrait in the Rijksmuseum (A2.8) features an adaptation of the two parents’ figures. Hals’s left half of the painting also reverberates in an anonymous family portrait dated 1632.²⁰

A2.5

13
Reconstruction of 1972

14
Detail of cat.no. A2.3

15
Detail of:
Gerrit Claesz. Bleker
a raid on a village, 1628
oil on panel, 75.5 x 136 cm, lower right: C GBleker.f.1628
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, inv.no. NGI.246

[12] image_id:xxxx size:large align:right description:“12, Reconstruction of 2018”

Oil on canvas, 204.5 x 134.5 cm
Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Alte Pinakothek, inv.no. 14101

This ful-length figure which appears even larger than life from the viewer’s perspective, is Hals’s largest single portrait. The sitter is the wealthy cloth merchant Willem van Heythuysen († 1650), who is represented in an excessively theatrical performance. He is dressed in the French fashion; some of his expensive pieces of clothing were described in his estate inventory that also mentions this large-scale portrait. It hung in the great room of his house on the Oudegracht in Haarlem. Heythuysen appears as if on the ramp of a stage, seen from below, and resting his outstretched right hand on a magnificent sword like a military commander. He poses in front of a palatial stone building hung with drapery. The folds of the cloth and the contours of the arm combine into bundles of diagonal lines seemingly radiating from the sitter’s head and upper body, providing visual emphasis to the center of attention. The energetically outstretched hand and the sword appear to separate the world of duty and great deeds from the idyllic background depicted as a garden of love on the left. This area, which used to be greener and brighter in the original condition, is separated from the foreground by a rosebush.

The semi-realistic and semi-symbolical attributes in this portrait are typical for the multi-layered perception of reality at the time. While moralizing attributes are included, these are not to be read as a rigid vocabulary of meaning that is set apart from the picture sphere as in a text. Rather, they appear embedded in it and offer connotations for the informed gaze. These can be ambiguous and can vary in emphasis. Boot indicated the use of roses in other portraits by Hals as well, which always emphasize transience, but of course equally express the mutual affection of spouses – as is probably the case in the Portrait of Pieter Dircksz. Tjarck (A1.80), the Portrait of Isabella Coymans (A1.120) and the Portrait of Nicolaes van den Heuvel, Susanna van Haelwael and their eldest children (A3.29). Boot quotes from Karel van Mander’s (1548-1606) Schilderboek: ‘The rose is evidence of the brevity of feeble human life / through its inconstancy and since it grows among thorns: / as man’s life is challenged by great need. / The rose also indicates the lust of sensual love / through its inconstancy’.²¹ Since Willem van Heythuysen was a bachelor, the roses in his portrait are probably not intended to be read as a declaration of love for a person or as a reference to sensual pleasure he enjoyed. This would have been neither in keeping with the understanding of images at the time nor with the moral code of his social circle. Last, not least, the fallen petals suggest a more common interpretation. As Boot confirmed with a picture emblem from Jacob Cats (1577-1660), the meaning ‘Vita Rosa Est’ – life is like a rose which blooms today and fades tomorrow – would come closest to the intended meaning here.²² Just as ambiguous is the introduction of the magnificently decorated sword. Heythuysen, who never held a military position, does take an officer’s pose, which one could interpret as a presentation of the weapon as a showpiece. His estate inventory lists a shotgun and a sword. It is conceivable that he had received the sword so prominently displayed here as a present of honor. As Boot notes, it shows a style developed around 1620.²³

The execution of the small figures and the garden hedge in the background is not very detailed, so that there are only approximate indicators for an attribution. Nevertheless, the style of painting differs from that of Hals and is probably that of Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), for whom the small figures would be characteristic. It is conceivable that this small background garden was the inspiration for the larger garden composition in the Portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen (A2.8). As in that painting, individual insertions of virtuoso quality stand out from the schematic representation of the hedge in the background. The loosely rendered single flower and leaf at Heythuysen’s feet prove to be final accents that may originate from Hals’s own hand [16][17].

In 1789 the portrait was mentioned in a panegyric on te occasion of the award ceremony at the Haarlem drawing academy.²⁴ It was sold in Haarlem in 1800 for the low price of 51 guilders and purchased by Prince Johann I Josef of Liechtenstein (1760-1836) in 1821 as created by Bartholomeus van der Helst (c. 1613-1670).²⁵ Waagen corrected the attribution in 1866.²⁶ In 1969, the painting was sold for 12 million Deutschmarks to the Bavarian State Collections.²⁷

The paint surface is well-preserved overall. There are considerable losses to the original shaping in the details of the facial and the collar. The areas of the hair and the moustache, but also the eyes, mouth, nose and cheeks are severely abraded. The left hand on the hip is partly retouched.

A2.6

16
Detail of cat.no. A2.6
Rose painted by Frans Hals

17
Detail of cat.no. A2.6
Roses painted by Pieter de Molijn

Oil on canvas, 79.7 x 65.1 cm, inscribed and dated lower center: AETA/ 41/ 1626
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, inv.no. 54/31

Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa (1586-1643) was a widely travelled, highly educated and successful merchant who maintained a personal connection to Hals. He was one of the godparents at the baptism of Hals’s daughter Adriaentje on 21 July 1623.²⁸ After spending eight years in Russia as an apprentice to Amsterdam merchants from 1600 to 1608, Massa repeatedly went on trading voyages to Russia and Sweden, combined with diplomatic missions. He wrote a pamphlet about the political events in Russia during his long sojourn there and was the first to bring back a map of Moscow to his homeland.²⁹

The present portrait was painted after Massa’s return from his fifth trip to Russia. The landscape background with its fir trees is unusual for Hals’s portraits and may bring to mind the long travels to and across Russia. Slive convincingly attributed this stylistically separate area to Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), whose tree shapes and background figures can be found in the background of several other paintings by Frans Hals and his workshop.³⁰ Bezold expressed doubts about this division of labor in the execution, since he could also well imagine the background being painted by Hals himself.³¹ However, the brushstroke in the background landscape is different and the style is more akin to De Molijn’s. The composition of De Molijn’s Mountain landscape with riders – which can be dated stylistically to the same period as the present painting – is closely related to the background in the portrait of Massa.

The presentation of the sitter in the present portrait is equally unusual as is the composition. Perhaps Hals’s personal connection to Massa allowed for a deviation from the usual frontal perspective. The composition illustrates activity; it depicts an action directed at an unknown area to the left that commands the sitter’s attention. Massa is not represented a model during a session, but distinctly distracted by something, so that his elbow is over the back of the chair, his head turned to the left and his eyes even further in that direction. His eyebrows are in movement and the mouth is slightly open, giving the impression of a brief and spontaneous moment of reaction. The face is the center of the action, while the right hand is relaxed and plays with a holly twig. Almost in passing, the symbolism of this plant evokes an element of friendship, or constancy in the character of the sitter.³² While the representation of the anatomical detail is clear throughout the portrait, a loose brushstroke emerges repeatedly in the areas of the face and hand. The modelling of the hand in a few brushstrokes is especially attractive and serves as a clarifying example of autograph execution in comparison to weaker pictures by imitators. A peculiar copy of these details can be found in the Portrait of a painter in the Frick Collection in New York (A4.3.38).

A2.7
Photo: © AGO

18
Pieter de Molijn
Berglandschap met ruiters bij brug en bergbeek, c. 1626-1627
Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, inv./cat.nr. 21130

Oil on canvas, 140 x 166.5 cm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. SK-A-133

In 1961, Eddy de Jongh and P.J. Vinken were the first to argue in favor of the identification of the present sitters as Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa (1586-1643) and Beatrix van der Laen (1592-1639), based on their resemblance to other secure portraits of Massa dating from 1626 and 1635 (A2.7, A4.1.11, C27).³³ Using high resolution detailed photography, it has become easier than ever to make the comparison. Revising my earlier assessment, I now agree with De Jongh and Vinken. The eyes, nose and mouth in particular indicate that all these portraits are of the same person.

The couple married on 25 April 1622. The fashion of their costumes also matches this date. The only difficulty is presented by a comparison with the portrait in Chatsworth dated 1622 (A1.13) that is quite different in style from the Rijksmuseum double portrait, being smoother and less colorful. None of Hals’s portraits from the early 1620s displays such freely finished and three-dimensionally structured heads and hands, as especially those of the young wife. Therefore, the present portrait dates most likely after the first individual portrait of Massa of 1626 (A2.7). In addition, it is more painterly in the transition between light and dark than the Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen (A2.6). These contradictions can only be resolved by assuming that the painting is a symbolical marriage portrait that was executed a few years after the wedding, most likely in 1627. If Jacob Olycan (1596-1638) and his wife Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653) were able to wear their wedding clothes in 1627, a year after the marriage, for their pendant portraits (A1.17, A1.18), this could also have been possible and reasonable for the portrait of Massa and his wife five years after their wedding.

The composition of the resting couple before a backdrop of trees ties in with the positioning of the seated couple in the fragment of the family portrait in Toledo (A2.3). Yet the similarity to the 1625 Granida and Daifilo by Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656) – nearly identical in size as well – is just as obvious, as explained in chapter 1.3.³⁴ Honthorst’s painting was based on Pieter Cornelisz Hooft’s (1581-1647) play Granida, and is to be understood as an allegory of the happiness of love. Its date of completion in 1625 can be considered as a terminus post quem for Hals’s Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz Massa and Beatrix van der Laen.

The couple is presented as surrounded by symbolic allusions to married love. Thistle, ivy and vine are references to love, faithfulness and constancy. ‘As the ivy clings to a wall or a tree, a wife clings to her husband. The thistle next to the man was a sign of male marital fidelity […]. Massa […] expresses […] his love by putting one hand on his heart’.³⁵ The woman’s hand on the man’s shoulder clearly displays the engagement and wedding rings. The Spanish-style costume displays the shoulder-bolster (vlieger) that indicated the status of married woman. The roles of the amicably attached wife and the man, who proudly presents himself with his right arm akimbo, could not be more different. Massa is resplendently dressed in the French fashion as an elegant man of the world, just like the similarly-dressed Willem van Heythuysen (A2.6). Nevertheless, the freely displayed emotion is extremely unusual for portraits of the time, as it ran counter to propriety: the woman smiles and the husband’s face looks amused, with his mouth open. These expressions indicate that this representation had a private rather than an official character.

Over a third of the picture surface is taken up by an allegorical landscape that has been interpreted as a garden of love. As outlined by Smith, the background scene might show an opposite world to the marital sphere in the foreground, based on the subject matter of the temple, fountain, and peacock and the clothing and behavior of the couples appearing there. The marital sphere is demarcated by the clay pots on the right and the ivy vines in front.³⁶ The painterly style in the area of the trees – with the exception of the ivy at the feet and between the heads of the sitters – and the figures sauntering in the right hand background differs from Hals’s manner and is closer to that of Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661). A drawing by the latter, dated by Beck to c. 1625-1626, depicts a similar elegant couple and may have been created in preparation of the present painting [19][20]. A suitable comparison for the rendering of the foliage can be found in Prince Maurits and Prince Frederik Hendrik going to the chase, 1625 [21] [22].³⁷ Awareness of the detailed symbolical program of the present double portrait suggests the presence of a well-considered concept involving the patron and further advisers. While Hals and De Molijn may have created the designs for the scenery, they were most likely not the sole originators. Up-close observations of the working sequence in this painting are described by Bezold, who also points out that parts of the background match the landscape in the 1627 Garden party by Dirck Hals (1591-1656).³⁸ Within the landscape setting of the portrait of Massa and Van der Laen, the two illuminated vines of ivy at the feet of the sitters and between their heads have been rendered in the same loose manner as the single rose and leaf at the feet of Willem van Heythuyzen in his full-length portrait in Munich (A2.6) – a style different from De molijn’s. These can be recognized as contributions by Hals himself.

Unfortunately, since the restoration of 1984, the damage in the paint layers in the lower left corner emerge in noticeable light patches.

A2.8

19
Pieter de Molijn
Elegant couple in a landscape, c. 1625-1626
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. PdM 1 (PK)
Photo: Studio Tromp

20
Detail of cat.no. A2.8

21
Detail of cat.no. A2.8

22
Detail of
Pieter de Molijn
Prince Maurits and Prince Frederik Hendrik going to the chase, 1625
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland