1633／Oil on canvas
102.9 x 88.9 cm
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum –
Exhibition period：Saturday April 12～Sunday June 8, 2025
Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
SUMMARY
Known for a bold, distinctive painting style using rough, quick brushstrokes, Hals was skilled in painting a group portrait that instantly captures the features of multiple figures. From the 1620s to 1630s, he actively created a number of genre paintings, many of which featured a single person. As represented by The Merry Drinker (c. 1628-1630; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), he introduced new elements which had not been seen in conventional portraits, such as casual, relaxed poses or friendly expressions and gestures that make it seem as if they are about to speak friendly to viewers from within the frame. Around the end of the 1630s, he strengthened his reflective tastes, changing colors to subdued conservative colors. This portrait, painted at the peak of Hals, accurately captures the dignified appearance of a preacher, and also shows spontaneous brushworks which can be reminiscent of free brushstrokes using the method of direct painting known as ‘alla prima,’ which is a characteristic of his oil painting of this period. Compared with his contemporary Rembrandt’s portraits that exhibit solid and elegant tastes, the Hals’s portrait conveys a sense of real existence of a model as if its breathing can actually be felt directly. He succeeded at skillfully depicting the emotion and personality of the model in this portrait. The inscription on the upper right of the background shows the model’s age and the date of the creation written together. Such a way of inscription is often seen in Hals’s portraits. Therefore, from this inscription, we can know that this model was 73 years old. The color palettes based on dark tones and the free, spontaneous brushstrokes—which were developed in the Netherlands in the 17th century—seem to foresee the art of Manet, a father of the French Impressionism, that would emerge two centuries later.
ARTIST
Frans Hals
c. 1581/85-1666
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION
Saturday, April 12 - Sunday, June 8, 2025
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Friday, July 26 - Monday, September 23, 2024
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Shizuoka City Museum of Art (Shizuoka, Japan)
Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, November 20, 2022
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan)
Saturday, July 16 - Sunday, September 4, 2022
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Saturday, March 19 - Sunday, May 8, 2022
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan)
Saturday, October 23 - Sunday, December 26, 2021
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan)
Friday, July 9 - Sunday, August 29, 2021
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan)
Tuesday, December 15 - Sunday, January 31, 2021
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan)
Saturday, September 12 - Tuesday, November 3, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan)
Wednesday, July 22 - Sunday, September 6, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan)
Thursday, February 20 - Sunday, April 12, 2020
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan)
Tuesday, September 3 - Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan)
Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
Saturday, July 9 - Sunday, August 28, 2016
300 years of Western Painting from Baroque, Rococo to École de Paris Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, June 27 - Sunday, August 30, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris Yawatahama Citizen Gallery (Ehime, Japan)
Wednesday, April 29 - Sunday, June 21, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris The Tokushima Modern Art Museum (Tokushima, Japan)
Friday, April 18 - Sunday, May 25, 2003
The Great Masters of Art Fukuoka Art Museum (Fukuoka, Japan)
Sunday, October 1 - Sunday, December 3, 2000
Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan)
Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, November 30, 1997
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
Friday, October 16 - Thursday, November 5, 1992
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting: The Paintings in 20th Century from the Renaissance to Impressionism China Art Gallery (Beijing, China)
Saturday, November 3 - Sunday, December 2, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea)
Saturday, September 22 - Sunday, October 21, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Provenance: The Danby Family By inheritance to George Affleck from whom acquired with the Swinton Estate in 1882 by Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, Later 1st Lord Masham And thence by descent to Viscountess Swinton Christie’s, November 28, 1975 (56) American Private Collection Exhibited: Royal Academy, Dutch Art 1450-1750, 1952-1953, no.62 Hull, Ferens Art Gallery, Dutch Painting of the Seventeenth Century, 1961, no.38
Literature: Possibly Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné etc., vol.Ⅲ, 1910, no.349c C.H. Collins-Baker, Two Unpublished Portraits by Frans Hals, Burlington Magazine, vol.ⅩLⅥ, January 1925, p.42, pl.B W.R. Valentiner, Rediscovered Paintings by Frans Hals, Art in America, vol.ⅩⅥ, 1928, p.248 W.R.Valentiner. New Additions to the Work of Frans Hals, Art in America, 1935, vol.ⅩⅩⅢ, p.101, no.6 S.Slive, Frans Hals, vol.3, Catalogue, 1974, no.40, pl.68
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