RKD STUDIES

Woodcut, dimensions unknown
Whereabouts unknown

After Frans Hals’s no longer extant self-portrait (B17). It probably served as the direct example for the print at the Noord-Hollands Archief (C42). It was tentatively attributed to Cornelis van den Berg (1699-1774) by Karel G. Boon.¹

C41

Woodcut, dimensions unknown
Haarlem, Noord-Hollands Archief, inv.no. NL-HlmNHA_1477_2456

Based on Frans Hals’s no longer extant self-portrait, in reverse. Possibly the abovementioned woodcut served as the direct example. The woodcut has been attributed to Isaac Vincentsz. van der Vinne (1665-1740), Salomon de Bray (1597-1664) and Dirk de Bray (c. 1635-1694).

C42

Woodcut, dimensions unknown
Whereabouts unknown

Another state of the print listed above, featuring a decorative ornamental border surrounding the portrait. It consists of Apollo, Pegasus and a number of women playing musical instruments. At the bottom of the oval cartouche, a river god is depicted. Identical borders can be found on the frontispieces of a range of French musical books, such as Musique de Guillaume Costeley, printed in Paris by Adrien le Roy (c. 1520-1598) and Robert Ballard (c. 1525-1588) in 1570; the eight volumes of the series Livre d’Airs de cour, et de differents autheurs, published in Paris by Pierre Ballard (c. 1580-1639) between 1617 and 1628 ; L’Eslite des Libertez by André de Rosiers de Beaulieu (fl. 1634-1672), printed in Paris under Robert Ballard III (c. 1610-1672) in 1644; and the 37 volumes of the series Airs de different autheurs à deux [et trois] parties, published between 1658 and 1694 by the same house.² Likely, the design for the decorative border thus originate from 16th-century France. It still remains unclear who decided to employ it for surrounding the portrait of Frans Hals and when this happened exactly. Since it was common for publishing houses to sell off the woodblocks and copper plates that were no longer in use, any individual interested in printing could have acquired it.

C42a

Mezzotint and engraving, 198 x 159 mm, signed lower right: J. Gole fec.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1898-A-20590

After a no longer extant painting by Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704). Jacob Gole (1665-1724) was the pupil and heir of Dusart, who in turn was a pupil and later on the assistant of Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685). When reversed, the print shows striking consistency with the sitter’s physiognomy in Van Ostade’s painted portrait by Hals [1].

C43

Mezzotint and brush in grey, 198 x 159 mm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1913-852

This is a proof for the abovementioned mezzotint, in which the area outside the oval has been rendered in grey ink. The banner and painter’s equipment depicted at the bottom have not ended up in the definite design.

C43a

Mezzotint and engraving, 123 x 93 mm, signed lower right: A. Blooteling F. et Ex.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1883-A-6808

This print’s composition is identical to that in two extant paintings [2][3]. All variants are probably based on the same modello by Hals.

C44

2
circle of Frans Hals (I)
Merry man holding a pewter jug and a pipe, c. 1638-1640
Private collection
cat.no. B11

3
circle of Frans Hals (I)
Merry man holding a pewter jug and a pipe, c. 1638-1640
Bayonne (France), Musée Bonnat
cat.no. B11a

Copper engraving, 332 x 259 mm, signed lower left: I. Suijderhoef sculps. Dated upper left: A° MDCLI
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.733

This engraving renders the painted portrait of Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617-1666) that was created in 1645, possibly as a commission from the sitter (A1.116). In the present state, Hoornbeeck is described as being a professor in Utrecht. A later state of the same print, mentions him as professor in Leiden [4].

C45

Copper engraving, 350 x 253 mm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1907-3426

The original plate by Jonas Suyderhoef (1614-1686) was cut down in size and reworked by an anonymous hand, adding the rectangular frame around the portrait. This adaptation causes the portrait to appear in a trompe l’oeil manner, like a poster that was unrolled, torn along the edges and attached onto a wall. The print was published by Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) in Fundatoris, Curatorum et Professorum celeberrimorum aliorumque illustrium vivorum…, Leiden, 1714-1720, as part of a series of 159 portraits of illustrious Leiden University professors.

C45a

Copper engraving, 317 x 228 mm, signed lower centre: I. Suijderhoeff sculpsit
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.718

This print was based on the same modello by Hals, that served as the example for the painted portraits of René Descartes (1596-1650) in Paris [5] and Copenhagen [6]. It was created after the sitter’s death in February 1650, as can be inferred from the inscription. The Latin verses below the portrait read as follows:

‘Here is the likeness of the Child of Nature: the one son
Who opened a way for the mind to the womb of that Mother.
While assigning all miracles to their own proper causes,
He alone remained the only miracle in the world’.³

C46

5
workshop of Frans Hals (I) or after Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, c. 1649
canvas, oil paint, 76 x 68 cm
Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv.no. 1317
©2016 RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/ Tony Querrec
cat.no. A4.1.15

6
workshop of Frans Hals (I) or after Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, c. 1649
panel, oil paint, 19 x 14 cm
Copenhagen, SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, inv.no. DEP7
cat.no. A4.1.15a

Copper engraving, c. 327 x 236 mm, signed centre left: I. Suyderhoef sculp.
The Hague, RKD - Netherlands Institute For Art History

After a lost modello by Frans Hals. The first edition of this print was inscribed centre left: A. V. Dyk. Pinsit, wrongly identifying Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) as the painter of the portrait.⁴ In the second edition, described in the present entry, this information was corrected to F. Hals Pinsit. Below the image there are lines of praise about Jacobus Revius (1586-1658), written by the famous Leiden scholar Daniel Heinsius (1580-1655):

‘Whom heavenly wisdom and holy virtue grace,
And the pure love of simplicity,
And the splendour of morals like the command of prudent behaviour,
And to whom talent was given as well as scholarly endeavour to express himself,
Be it in Greek, be it in Latin and now in Netherlandish verses,
This was my Revius’.⁵

Jacobus Revius (1586-1658) – latinised from Jakob Reefsen – was a Netherlandish Calvinist theologian, preacher, poet and church historian. He was born as the son of the mayor in Deventer, from where his family fled to Amsterdam after the invasions of the Spaniards in 1587. Between 1614 and 1641 he worked as an assistant preacher in Deventer, where he wrote a town history. He exchanged pamphlets with the philosopher Adriaan Heerebrod (1613-1661), in which he expressed criticism of the philosophy of René Descartes (1596-1650). In 1641 he was appointed director of the Staatencollege in Leiden, a boarding school for students of theology. The footer line of the engraving refers to this position. Revius’s best-known work is the Over-Ysselsche Sangen en Dichten. Through his poems written in Dutch he reached a broad audience, with some hymns well-known until the present day.

The portrait with its determined and searching gaze is only preserved in the engraving. While the psychology of the facial features was convincingly captured, the area of the too small hand seems an afterthought. Its modelling suggests a modello which could have looked similar to those for the Wickenburg (A4.1.17, C49) and Post portraits (A4.1.18, C50).⁶ This means that the area of the face and shoulders was probably executed by Hals himself, while the hand was either not indicated by him or merely suggested and finished in detail by an assistant, most likely Frans Hals II (1618-1669).

C47

Copper engraving, 346 x 255 mm, signed lower left: I. Suijderhoef sculpsit
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.770

The verses under the portrait read:

‘This is Tegularius, who gave strength to Haarlem over a period of thirteen years with unadulterated enlightenment by the word of God. His fervour could be heard as long as his thunderous voice rung in the ears of the faithful. But now his noble soul lives on with the Lord and he no longer conveys entertainment to the earthly life. As our will is subject to that of God, his portrait shall suffice for us in this world’.⁷

Like his brother Herman (1604-1666), Adriaen Tegularius (1605-1654) was a preacher. While his brother became a Remonstrant, Adriaen remained Reformed. He took on his duties first in Hem, then in Grootebroek and from 1641 in Haarlem. He was a member of the Northern Dutch Synod, whose secretary he was in Alkmaar in 1644 and from 1643 as the assistant of its president in Haarlem. He annotated a letter by Passchier de Fijne (1588-1667), which juxtaposed Arminian and Reformed views.⁸

Jonas Suyderhoef’s (1614-1686) engraving presents the mighty head of the sitter with its energetic expression down to the last detail of the hands and folds of the coat. Even though these were transferred into the grey shades of the engraving, the accurate placement of every single brushstroke in the model is obvious. Consequently, there must have been a fully developed portrait design. The priority of this engraving that documents Hals’s pictorial achievement is indisputable in comparison with the much coarser painted version that was last reported at a 1989 auction [7].

C48

Copper engraving, 375 x 288 mm, signed lower center: I Suyderhoef sculp.
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, inv.no. A 23997

Below the portrait, is written in elegant calligraphy:

‘The engraving of Wickenburg, made after his likeness, preserves his features
The heaven keeps his soul, the body holds its sad appearance
His former candour, zeal and eloquent words of the pious
The community mourns its father, each individual that misses him’.⁹

Theodorus Wickenburg († 1655) was a preacher in Haarlem. The year of his death suggests a plausible date for the execution of the present engraving. The connection with the only surviving painted portrait of this sitter – oil on paper, mounted onto canvas – would make for an exciting comparison [8]; sadly this modello has not been seen since its last exhibition in 1932.¹⁰

C49

Copper engraving, c. 275 x 230 mm
Vienna, Albertina, inv.no. H/I/61/6

This engraving renders the similarly sized painted portrait of the artist Frans Post (1612-1680), now kept at the Worcester Art Museum, in reverse [9]. It probably served as the example for the drawing by Cornelis van den Berg (1699-1774) [10].

C50

9
workshop of Frans Hals (I), possibly Frans Hals (II)
Portrait of Frans Post
panel, oil paint, 27.5 x 23 cm
Worcester Art Museum, inv.no. 1994.273
©Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, Stoddard Acquisition Fund
cat.no. A4.1.18

10
Cornelis van den Berg
Portrait of Frans Post
Haarlem, Noord-Hollands Archief, inv./cat.nr. NL-HlmNHA_53014061_M
cat.no. D95