A3 Paintings by Frans Hals and his workshop assistants
Works from all periods in Hals’s oeuvre show stylistic and qualitative variations between individual sections. Recognizing the master's typical mode of representation permits to differentiate between areas that were probably executed by himself and those that were carried out by another hand. Contributions by assistants are quite easily recognizable, as they have not sufficiently absorbed Hals’s probably mostly unconscious approach. While partial divergences or weaknesses were previously used to argue against authentication of entire works by the master, or at least to express doubt, the historically founded assumption of a workshop practice can reach to a more satisfactory and more acceptable solution while taking the actual appearance of many works into account. From a historical point of view, even those artworks with only a partially autograph involvement are by Frans Hals, as they were created under his supervision, and he was the recipient for commission payments. From the point of view of having been executed by his own hand, they are, however, only partially attributable.
Frans Hals (I) and workshop
Two singing boys
canvas, oil paint, 69.2 x 59.1 cm
lower left: FHF
Sale New York (Sotheby’s), 20 May 1993, lot 94
cat.no. A3.10