Circle of Frans Hals

Laughing fisherboy

VAT reduced rate

Lot Closed

July 7, 01:29 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property of the Descendants of Prof. Dr. Cornelis Hofstede de Groot

Circle of Frans Hals

Laughing fisherboy

oil on panel, with a red wax seal bearing the Sas coat of arms on the reverse

unframed: 37.7 x 33.2 cm.; 14¾ x 13 in.

framed: 54.8 x 50.3 cm.; 21½ x 19¾ in.

Wilhelm Trübner (1851–1917), Berlin;
His postumous sale, Berlin, Lepke, 5 June 1918, lot 278, (as Frans Hals?);
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863–1930), The Hague, by 1921;
Thence by inheritance to his sister;
Thence by descent to the current owner.

W.R. Valentiner, Frans Hals, Berlin 1923, p. 113 (as Frans Hals);
W.R. Valentiner, 'Rediscovered Paintings by Frans Hals', in Art in America, vol. XVI, 1928, p. 238 (as Frans Hals);
C. Grim and E.C. Montagni, L'opera completa di Frans Hals, Milan 1974, p. 118, no. 324b, reproduced p. 117 (under doubtful works);
S. Slive, Frans Hals, London 1974, vol. III, p. 119, listed under no. L5, variant 1 (as a copy after Frans Hals);
F. Dony and K. Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Frans Hals, Rotterdam 1976, p. 130, no. 324b, reproduced p. 131 (as a copy after Frans Hals).

This is a variant after a presumed lost painting by Frans Hals of a laughing fisherboy dating to the late 1620s of which a mezzotint by Johannes de Groot survives.¹There are two other recorded versions, both closer in format and composition to the original print, one offered at Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 2005, lot 540, and the other offered at Christie’s, London, 30 April 1954, lot 146.

We are grateful to Claus Grimm, who will include the present painting in his forthcoming revised and expanded catalogue raisonné of Frans Hals' œuvre, as a workshop painting or a contemporary copy, no. A4.2-29a.

Note on Provenance

This painting is recorded as having once been in the collections of two notable owners. It first belonged to the German realist painter Wilhelm Trübner (1851–1917), who formed part of the core group of artists known as The Leibl Circle. His posthumous sale included works by Tiepolo, Van Dyck and Cranach the Elder. This panel was then acquired by the eminent art historian and collector Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863–1930). Throughout his career he amassed an extensive art collection of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, which famously included 65 Rembrandt drawings, which he donated to the print room of the Rijksmuseum in 1906. His personal archives, posthumously donated to the State of the Netherlands, form the basis for what is known today as the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History), founded in 1932, the most important centre for the study of Dutch art. Upon his death, a large part of his collection was donated to the Groninger Museum, where it still remains today.

¹https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1874-0613-792