Frans Hals

C.W. Powell, Tunbridge Wells, England (hanging in his parent's house since at least 1915);
By inheritance to his nephew;
By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, circa 1960, where acquired by a German dealer;
Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt, bears his label on the reverse with inventory number, by whom acquired in Munich in 1962;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 7 July 1978, lot 163 (as Circle of Frans Hals), where bought by the present owner.

C. Grimm, Frans Hals. The Complete Work, New York 1989, pp. 14-16, 283, cat. no. 90, reproduced colour plate 94, pp. 16, figs. 4a, 4b and 4e, 183 (& German ed., Frans Hals.  Das Gesamtwerk, Stuttgart & Zurich 1989, pp. 15-16, 278, reproduced figs 4a, 4b, and 4e).

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The roughly circular oak support appears stable. There is evidence that the panel has split in the past and that this has been re-joined and now appears stable. The paint layer appears to be in a good condition, there is no evidence of any recent damages or loss and the overall adhesion between the paint and the ground layers appears good. The painting has been recently restored; the losses to the paint layers, indicated in the photograph of the painting after the over-paint removal, have been retouched across the sitter’s neck and hair. The hat and collar have been strengthened, while there are small areas of minor restoration present in the sitter’s face. There is a fresh varnish layer present. The painting was examined in the frame.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This painting, a tronie of a boy in a fanciful beret, was originally lozenge shaped (or more accurately a square turned onto a point), a format used by Hals on several occasions.¹  Of the present irregular shape of a rough tondo however, only a straight section to the lower left is an extant original edge, although bevelling in other parts of the circumference show that the original edges were not far away.  Fig. 1 shows a reconstruction of the original shape.

It was heavily over-painted when last sold in 1978, with the hand painted out, most of the neck covered, and the sitter given much longer hair.² Cleaning by Mevr. Van Dantzig in Holland in 1981 revealed that during the course of earlier 'improvements', original paint, especially in the collar and neck had been effaced (see Fig. 2). Retouching was started by Alan Cummings in 1981 and completed by Jan Boström in 1984-5. These and a subsequent restoration proved to be less than satisfactory, and more recently (in 2011) the painting was cleaned again and restored by Martin Bijl in Alkmaar.  There it was examined by Pieter Biesboer and Norbert Middelkoop, both of whom have kindly confirmed Hals' authorship.

This painting displays a number of characteristics that are typical of Frans Hals.  Much of the brushwork runs on a diagonal, following the grain of the panel.  Rather than adding highlights (hoogzels as they were known in the 17th Century) last, as most artists did, Hals also added some of the darks (diepzels) during the last phase of painting: some of the shadows, and outlines such as those of the sitter's thumb swiftly delineated in the same deep red paint that Hals used for the lips.  Some of the shadows are done conventionally using blacks, but others are also in this deep red pigment.  At this late stage Hals added the few brushstrokes denoting loose hairs over the sitter's face, and the yellow highlight on the top of the upper lip.  Hals has used striated curving brushstrokes of lighter straw-coloured yellow ochre to highlight the sitter's rather greasy hair, and these were also done at a late phase when the underlying paint was no longer soft.  Although this picture gives the impression that it was very swiftly painted, with much of the brushwork done "wet-in-wet" - and indeed for much of the painting this is surely true, it is clear that Hals painted it in two distinct phases, letting the paint dry in between.  This is a characteristic of his working method, including in his formal portraits.

The pentiments are also probably from the second phase.  the most obvious of these is in the pointing finger of the boy, which Hals has extended using a redder tone of paint, through which the original fingernail can be made out.  Hals also altered the angle between the beret and the cloth to the right of the sitter's neck, using paint which now appears more yellow in tone, through which the original dark paint can be seen.  The same effect is also to be seen to the left of the composition.  Hals used an olive green paint to depict the half-tones in the right hand half of the face, and also in the background, which is undefined, but where the sitter's head casts a shadow.  

Grimm dates this picture in the late 1630s - to circa 1638.  This is a decade or so after the traditional dating of Hals' early genre paintings, although the chronology of these is being re-examined by scholars.

A copy after the present work in its over-painted state was formerly in the collection of Jacob Epstein, Baltimore, Maryland.³

1.  For example the pendant portraits of circa 1630; see Grimm, under Literature, p. 282, nos. 85 & 86, reproduced.
2.  Idem, fig. 4a.
3.  Idem, reproduced p. 16, fig. 4c.