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CATALOGUE ENTRY

Portrait of Frans Hals

about 1650
After Frans Hals
Dutch
oil on oak panel
13-1/2 × 10 in.
(34.3 × 25.5 cm)
The Clowes Collection
2015.28
SEE TECHNICAL EXAMINATION REPORT

Marks, Inscriptions, and Distinguishing Features

At lower right: “147.” in pale yellow paint

Entry

This panel shows the likeness of Frans Hals (about 1581–1666), one of the most celebrated painters of the Dutch Republic. Compared to a rare portrait of the artist (fig. 1) from his own lifetime,1 inserted into a depiction of the Saint George civic guard of 1639, one can observe in the Clowes panel similarities in the broad nose, dark eyes, distinctive mustache and goatee, and flowing locks. Isolated against a neutral background and without attribute, Hals is outfitted in a black cloak adorned with buttons and a simple flat collar. A short-brimmed black hat sits jauntily on his head. He gazes over his shoulder at the viewer, offering a significantly more aged visage than in the Saint George group portrait, with a furrowed brow, thin cheeks, and bags under the eyes. The American writer Booth Tarkington (1869–1946), writing in 1937, appropriately described his appearance as “lacking the remotest taint of vanity."2

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Figure 1: The figure second from left in the top row is thought to be Frans Hals himself. Frans Hals (Dutch, about 1581–1666), Officers and Sergeants of the Saint George Civic Guard, 1639, oil on canvas, 85-53/64 × 165-3/4 in. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, os I-113.

Just before the painting made its public debut in 1935, it was sung by connoisseur Wilhelm R. Valentiner as an exceptional self-portrait due to its “psychological forming and […] highly-gifted technique."3 The painting had been presumed to be by the master’s own hand when it first appeared in a German royal inventory of 1722.4 Several factors substantiate the painting’s status as a self-portrait: its identification as such in the early inventory, less than sixty years after the artist’s death; the use of the artist’s signature late style and the turn of the head;5 and the fact that at least fifteen versions in a variety of media survive.6 Several of the painted copies will be addressed here, but one watercolor, known as The Apotheosis of Franz Hals by Cornelis van Noorde (about 1581–1666) (fig. 2), bears mentioning in this immediate context. Dated 1754, this watercolor is accompanied by an inscription reading ipse pinxit (he himself has painted it), indicating that it was executed after a painting by Hals’s own hand, the earliest known reference to it as a self-portrait.7 Scholars believe the image depicts the artist around 1645, based on the “enamel-like” quality of the artist’s blacks and whites in this period and the fashion of the unadorned flat collar and short-brimmed hat.8 This date would accord, roughly, with Hals’s age of about sixty-five years.

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Figure 2: Cornelis van Noorde (Dutch, 1731–1795), The Apotheosis of Frans Hals, 1754, watercolor in greytones, 12-61/64 × 10-5/8 in. Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, NL-HlmNHA_53013504.

In 1970, however, noted Hals scholar Seymour Slive declared the Clowes panel to be the best of the eight painted versions after a lost original, an epithet that continues today.9 Replicas may be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 3);10 the Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki;11 and a German private collection (fig. 4).12 Additional versions were formerly in the collections Mrs. Charles H. Senff, New York;13 the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem;14 the Denver Art Museum;15 and a European, presumably private, collection.16 The striking nearness of these undated versions to each other, however, in composition, size, and overall style provides a strong indication of the original painting’s appearance.17 The Clowes portrait has been praised for its focused, intense expression; its rich color; the plasticity of the hat; and the naturalistic modeling of the face.18 Furthermore, when compared to such authentic portraits as the small-scale seated man holding a branch of about 1645 (Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, inv. 15901), similarities to Hals in the handling of paint become readily apparent. In the Ottawa painting, a comparable use of unblended brushstrokes around the eyes, a bold contour line in the collar, and even a thin layer of paint in the background that allows the woodgrain to remain visible can be seen. Similar looseness in the hair can also be found in the portrait of Willem Coenraetsz. Coymans of 1645 (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, inv. 1937.1.69). Dendrochronological investigation suggests a year of creation beginning in 1646,19 which corresponds precisely with Hals’s manner during this time.

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Figure 3: Copy after Frans Hals (Dutch, about 1581–1666), Frans Hals (1582/83–1666), around 1650s, oil on wood, 12-7/8 × 11 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931, 32.10.8.
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Figure 4: After Frans Hals (Dutch, about 1581–1666), Portrait of Frans Hals, date unknown, 13-5/16 × 9-13/16 in. Formerly Winfried Schönberger, Wiesbaden.

Given this information, it is very likely that the painting originated in Hals’s native Holland, possibly even in the artist’s own studio. The construction of the Clowes painting echoes the general preparation of panels in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century: it consists of a chalk-based ground on top of a single oak plank with a grayish imprimatur.20 Furthermore, all the materials used, from the support to the varnish, are consistent with a mid-seventeenth century origin.21 While little is known about the structure of Hals’s atelier, documents record several pupils, including Dirk van Delen (about 1605–1671), Adriaen Brouwer (about 1606–1638), Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668), Vincent Laurentsz. van der Vinne (1628–1701), and Hals’s son-in-law Pieter van Roestraten (about 1630–1700), as well as the artist’s five sons.22 If the original self-portrait remained in Hals’s studio between 1645 and 1650 as a teaching tool for his students,23 as was the case with some of Rembrandt’s self-portraits, there are only a few candidates for the author of the Clowes painting. Van Roerstraten and Frans II Hals were still in the master’s studio, while his son Jan had settled in Haarlem and joined the painter’s guild at about this time. The strongest argument for the panel to have been executed by someone in Hals’s immediate circle, in addition to the technical evidence, is the proximity of the artist’s style to that of the master.

Authors had begun to celebrate the distinctive vivacity of Hals’s portraits at approximately the time that the Clowes painting was created. In 1647, Theodorus Schrevelius (1572–1649), the rector of the Latin School in Leiden, penned the following words of praise for Hals: “His paintings are imbued with such force and vitality that he seems to defy nature herself with his brush. This is seen in all his portraits, so numerous as to pass belief, which are coloured in such a way that they seem to live and breathe."24 Similar sentiments are echoed by the biographer Cornelis de Bie (1627–about 1715) in 1661,25 the anatomist and poet Govaert Bidloo (1649–1713) in 1719 in a posthumous publication,26 and the biographer Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719) in the same year.27 The “master’s touch,” a phrase coined by Houbraken, is one of the defining elements of the artist’s signature style.28 It concerns the bold brushstrokes that hover on the surface of the painting to efficiently articulate the fold in a sleeve or the projection of a nose into space. Such strokes, which were added in the last stages of work,29 may be found in the Clowes portrait in the black cloak that envelopes the artist’s torso.30 Further elements of the “rough style” of painting visible here—the contours defined with a series of sketchy lines, the use of unblended brushstrokes, and an overall sense of a quick finish—align Hals with the tradition of such artists as Titian (1485–1576) and Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594), El Greco (1541–1614), and even certain periods in the careers of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669).31 Such a bold style not only distinguished the artist from his peers and suggested the artist’s ability, but it also may have suggested the movement of a living being, a shifting light, and even the process of working from life.32 It was, thus, an appropriate manner for portraiture and offered a particularly suitable vehicle for a self-portrait.

That so many versions of this painting exist is a testament to the popularity of self-portraits in the early modern period. The self-portrait visualized a countenance that was typically behind the easel rather than depicted on it and was thereby a novel subject on the market. Collectors valued them as representations of the painter as a specific person and esteemed them among depictions of uomini illustri. Artists were certainly aware of the status of the self-portrait and capitalized upon the taste for them, as evident by the numerous self-portraits by Hals’s contemporaries, Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and Rembrandt (1606–1669), for example.33 Self-portraits of Dutch and Flemish artists are documented in the royal collections of Charles I of England (1600–1649), Leopoldo (1617–1675) and Cosimo III (1652–1723) de' Medici, and Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz (1658–1717) in the seventeenth century, as well as in the collections of noted connoisseurs Everhard Jabach (1607/12–1695) and Samuel Pepys (1633–1703).34 The simultaneous presence of the Clowes version and the version in a German private collection (see fig. 4) in the royal collection in Dresden in 1722—evident in the corresponding numbers located in their lower right corners—demonstrates the continued regard for self-portraits of famous artists into the eighteenth century.

Luigi Lanzi (1732–1810), an early writer on Etruscan art, posited an additional function of the self-portrait when writing on the collection in the Medici gallery in 1782: “every portrait in the two rooms is a self-portrait of the painter, so in each painting one has a depiction of the artist and at the same time a particular example of his style."35 The achievement of the artist’s personal style was thus imperative to the success of the painting when copying a self-portrait. The Clowes panel, which more accurately imitates the “master’s touch” than any of the other versions, thereby occupies a special place in the history of the self-portrait in Northern Europe, for it captures both the appearance and the style of one of the most admired painters of the human face.

Author

Jacquelyn N. Coutré

Provenance

August Christoph, Graf von Wackerbarth [1662–1734];36

Königliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, until 1860.37

Fernand Crouan (1845–1905), Nantes;

by descent to his son-in-law, Maurice de Lagotellerie (1874–1928), Paris.38

(E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York);

acquired by Dr. G.H.A. Clowes, Indianapolis, in 1934;39

The Clowes Fund, Indianapolis, from 1958–2015, and on long-term loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1971 (C10047);

Given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 2015.

Exhibitions

Detroit Institute of Arts, 1935, An Exhibition of Fifty Paintings by Frans Hals, no. 49 (as Frans Hals);

John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, 1937, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Etchings, Drawings, Delftware, no. 20 (as Frans Hals);

Gemeentelijk Museum, Haarlem, 1937, Frans Hals Tentoonstelling ter gelegenheid van het 75-jarig bestaan van het Gemeentelijk Museum te Haarlem op 30 juni 1937 (as Frans Hals);

World’s Fair, New York, Masterpieces of Art, 1939, no. 188, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Los Angeles County Museum, 1947, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Frans Hals and Rembrandt, no. 19, (as Frans Hals);

E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, 1955, An Exhibition of Paintings for the Benefit of The Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., no. 19, (as Frans Hals);

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1959, Masterpieces of Art: In Memory of Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 1880–1958, no. 67, (as Frans Hals);

John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, 1959, Paintings from the Collection of George Henry Alexander Clowes: A Memorial Exhibition, no. 35 (as Frans Hals);

The Art Gallery, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 1962, A Lenten Exhibition, no. 26 (as Frans Hals);

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, 1962, Frans Hals: Tentoonstelling ter gelengenheid van het honderdjarig bestaan van het Gemeentemuseum te Haarlem, 1862–1962, no. 58, (as best version of surviving versions);

Indiana University Museum of Art, Bloomington, IN, 1963, Northern European Painting: The Clowes Fund Collection, no. 36, (as Frans Hals);

Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, 2019, Life and Legacy: Portraits from the Clowes Collection, (as after Frans Hals, Portrait of the Artist).

References

Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Based on the Work of John Smith, vol. 3 (London: Macmillan and Co., 1910), possibly no. 148.2 (as old copy);

W.R. Valentiner, An Exhibition of Fifty Paintings by Frans Hals, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1935), no. 49, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

“Long-Hidden Work by Hals is Found,” The New York Times (January 9, 1935): 21, reproduced (as Frans Hals; as [erroneously] purchased by H. Klaus of Minneapolis);

W.R. Valentiner, “Great Hals Exhibition Opens in Detroit,” The Art News 23, no. 15 (January 12, 1935): 6 (as Frans Hals);

“50 Paintings by Frans Hals, Owned in America, Shown in Detroit,” The Art Digest 9, no. 8 (January 15, 1935): 1, reproduced (as Frans Hals; as [erroneously] purchased by H. Klaus of Minneapolis);

E.P. Richardson, “The Frans Hals Exhibit,” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 14 (February 1935): 50, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

W.R. Valentiner, “New Additions to the Work of Frans Hals,” Art in America 23, no. 3 (June 1935): 89, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

“Neuentdeckungen zum Werke des Frans Hals,” Die Weltkunst 9, no. 33/34 (August 25, 1935): 3, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Ludwig Goldscheider, Fünfhundert Selbstporträts von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Vienna: Phaidon, 1936), ill. (as Frans Hals);

W.R. Valentiner, Frans Hals Paintings in America (Westport, CT: Frederic Fairchild Sherman, 1936), no. 88, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Wilbur D. Peat, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Etchings, Drawings, Delftware, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1937), [vi] and no. 20, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

G. D. Gratama, Frans Hals Tentoonstelling ter gelegenheid van het 75-jarig bestaan van het Gemeentelijk Museum te Haarlem op 30 juni 1937, exh. cat. (Haarlem: De Erven van F. Bohn, 1937), 50, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

“Frans Hals, ‘Laureate of Laughter,’ Honored by His Native Haarlem,” The Art Digest 11, no. 17 (June 1, 1937): 7 (as Frans Hals);

Ella S. Siple, “Paintings from American Collections Now on Loan in the Frans Hals Museum at Haarlem,” The Burlington Magazine 71, no. 413 (August 1937): 90 (as Frans Hals);

George Henry McCall and William R. Valentiner, Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800, exh. cat. (New York: William Bradford Press, 1939), no. 188, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Eduard Plietzsch, Frans Hals (Burg bei Magdeburg: August Hopfer, 1940), 14, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

K. G. Boon, Het Zelfportret in de Nederlandsche en Vlaamsche Schilderkunst (Amsterdam: Van Holkema & Warendorf, 1947), 40, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

W.R. Valentiner, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Frans Hals and Rembrandt, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1947), no. 19, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

E. and A. Silberman Galleries, An Exhibition of Paintings for the Benefit of The Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., exh. cat. (New York: E. and A. Silberman Galleries, 1955), no. 19, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

James B. Byrnes, Masterpieces of Art: In Memory of Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 1880–1958, exh. cat. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1959), no. 67, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

David G. Carter, Paintings from the Collection of George Henry Alexander Clowes: A Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1959), no. 35, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

F.W. Bilodeau, “The Clowes Fund Collection at Indianapolis, Indiana,” The Connoisseur 148, no. 595 (August 1961): 6, reproduced (as Hals);

H. P. Baard, Frans Hals: Tentoonstelling ter gelengenheid van het honderdjarig bestaan van het Gemeentemuseum te Haarlem, 1862–1962, exh. cat. (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 1962), no. 58, reproduced (as best version of surviving versions);

John Howett, A Lenten Exhibition Loaned by the Clowes Fund, Incorporated of Indianapolis, exh. cat. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1962), no. 26, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Henry R. Hope, Northern European Painting: The Clowes Fund Collection, exh. cat. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Museum of Art, 1963), no. 36, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Jayne Ellison, “Fine Arts for the Soul,” Camerica (July 28, 1963): 12, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars (Amsterdam: Swets en Zeitlinger, 1963), no. 820.9 (as Frans Hals);

Alice Elizabeth Chase, Famous Artists of the Past (New York: Platt & Munk, 1964), 22 and 118, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Eva Zengel, ed., Frans Hals (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1969), back cover, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–74), 1:163, reproduced and 3: no. L15-I, reproduced (both as copy after lost original);

Claus Grimm, Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werkanalyse, Gesamtkatalog (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1972), 112 and 205 (as most complete copy after Hals original);

A. Ian Fraser, A Catalogue of the Clowes Collection (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1973), xxxiii–xxxiv, 78, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Claus Grimm, L’Opera completa di Frans Hals (Milan: Rizzoli, 1974), no. 184c, reproduced (as good copy after Hals original);

Eloise Spaeth, American Art Museums: An Introduction to Looking, 3rd ed. (New York/Evanston: Harper & Row, 1975), 132 (as Frans Hals);

Frans L. M. Dony, ed., Alle tot nu bekende schilderijen van Frans Hals (Rotterdam: Lekturama, 1976), 11, no. 184c, reproduced (as good copy after Hals original);

Anthony F. Janson and A. Ian Fraser, Handbook of European and American Paintings to 1945: Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1981), unpaginated, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

Christopher Wright, Rembrandt: Self-Portraits (London: Viking Press, 1982), 34, reproduced (as probable copy after Hals);

Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington, D.C.: The Netherlands–American Amity Trust, Inc., 1986), 120 (as copy after Hals);

Norbert Middelkoop and Anne van Grevenstein, Frans Hals: Life, Work, Restoration (Amsterdam: Uniepers, 1989), 92, reproduced (as copy after Hals original);

Seymour Slive, ed. Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 9, reproduced (as copy after Hals original);

Claus Grimm, Frans Hals: The Complete Work, trans. Jürgen Riehle (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 67, reproduced (as best copy after Hals original);

Alice van Diepen and Henriëtte Fuhri Snethlage, Haarlem en Hals: Een stad en zijn schilder (Zwolle: Waanders, 1990), 75, 157, reproduced (as copy after Frans Hals original);

Ingeborg Worm, “Frans Hals,” in Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art, vol. 14 (New York: Grove, 1996), 92 (as copy);

Carla Brenner, Jennifer Riddell, and Barbara Moore, Painting in the Dutch Golden Age: A Profile of the Seventeenth Century (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2007), 138, reproduced (as after Frans Hals);

Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 1: under no. 70, reproduced (as best copy after Hals original);

Walter Liedtke, Frans Hals: Style and Substance (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), under fig. 32 (as best copy after Hals original);

Seymour Slive, ed., Frans Hals, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Phaidon, 2014), 19, 23, 257, 258, 311, reproduced (as best copy after Hals original);

Jacquelyn N. Coutré, “The Rise and Fall of a Self-Portrait: Valentiner, Liedtke, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Portrait of Frans Hals,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017): DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.6, (as best copy after Hals original), reproduced.

Notes

  1. The artist, with the number 19 above his head, is identified on the panel attached to the portrait’s frame. The list of men represented comes from an eighteenth-century record; see Koos Levy-van Halm and Liesbeth Abraham, “Frans Hals, Militiamen, and Painter: The Civic Guard Portrait as an Historical Document,” in Seymour Slive, ed., Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 99. A drawn portrait identified as Frans Hals, legendarily attributed to Anthony van Dyck, neither corroborates nor dispels the identification of the sitter of the Clowes painting. See Norbert Middelkoop and Anne van Grevenstein, Frans Hals: Life, Work, Restoration (Amsterdam: Uniepers, 1989), fig 92e. The Portrait of a Painter (c. 1650, New York, The Frick Collection, 1906.1.71) had been called a self-portrait in the early twentieth century but is no longer considered as such. ↩︎

  2. “Of the works of Frans Hals, there are six, and one of these is Dr. Clowes’s suddenly famous little self-portrait by the painter, a keen and living bit of analysis from as quick and sure a brush as ever flicked canvas or panel. Admirably and pathetically lacking the remotest taint of vanity, this picture would have satisfied Robert Burns; battered Frans Hals, without self-pity, could see himself as others saw him, but more shrewdly.” See Wilbur D. Peat, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Etchings, Drawings, Delftware, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1937), [vi]. On the history of paintings by Frans Hals in the United States, see Dennis P. Weller, “Frans Hals in America: Another Embarrassment of Riches,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.5. ↩︎

  3. See certificate of authenticity by Wilhelm Valentiner, 16 February 1934, File C10047, Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. See also W.R. Valentiner, An Exhibition of Fifty Paintings by Frans Hals, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1935); Valentiner, “Great Hals Exhibition Opens in Detroit,” The Art News 23, no. 15 (12 January 1935): 1, 4–11; and Valentiner, “New Additions to the Work of Frans Hals,” Art in America 23, no. 3 (June 1935): 85–103. By 1935, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s version was considered to be the original, and the Clowes panel quickly unseated it as the authentic self-portrait through Valentiner’s promotion. On this about-face, see Jacquelyn N. Coutré, “The Rise and Fall of a Self-Portrait: Valentiner, Liedtke, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Portrait of Frans Hals,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017): DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.6. The high quality of the Clowes version supposedly forced the Frans Hals Museum to de-attribute their version, as well. When the painting traveled to Haarlem for an exhibition in 1937, The Indianapolis Star reported that it was the Clowes version—not that belonging to the Frans Hals Museum—that was festooned with garlands for the artist’s birthday. See “Ferdinand Schaefer, Founder of Orchestra, Returns from Europe,” The Indianapolis Star (16 September 1937): n.p. ↩︎

  4. “147. Franz Halz. or. Eigen Contrefait. Höhe: 15 Zoll, Breite: 11 Zoll, geliefert: Wackerbarth, befinden sich dato: Gallerie,” as transcribed by Elisabeth Hipp, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, email message to 7 April 2010, File C10047, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Both the Clowes version, numbered 147, and the version in a private German collection (see fig. 4), numbered 191, were described as self-portraits in this inventory. ↩︎

  5. On the turn of the artist’s head over the shoulder to suggest ingenium, see Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim/New York: Olms, 1984), 181–220. ↩︎

  6. N. S. Trivas, The Paintings of Frans Hals (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1941), Appendix, under no. 7. It is, in fact, one of his most frequently replicated paintings. On the frequent repetition of self-portraits, see Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function,” in A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Part 4: The Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 89. ↩︎

  7. Cornelis van Noorde also later made a mezzotint, similarly inscribed, after the painting in 1767. See Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 1:163 and 3:123. See also Claus Grimm, L’Opera completa di Frans Hals (Milan: Rizzoli, 1974), 107.

    Images in other media also exist. Slive lists two additional drawings: one in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin–Dahlem (inv. 2505), and one in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem that he attributed to “one of the Van de Vinnes” but is now listed by the museum under the name David Heemskerk (inv. KT 2733). See Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:124. Two anonymous woodcuts after the painting exist, as well: one that has been given, variously, to Isaac van der Vinne (1665–1740) and Salomon de Bray (1597–1664), and a second one by an unknown artist. See Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:figs. 91–92. The original by Hals or a copy after it seems also to have been the general model for the portrait of the artist by Jacob Houbraken in Arnold Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen (’s-Gravenhage: J. Swart, C. Boucquet, and M. Gaillard, 1753 [fac. Amsterdam: Israël, 1976]), 1:opp. p. 92, though Cornelis Hofstede de Groot did not find this likeness compatible with the painted versions. See Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Based on the Work of John Smith, vol. 3 (London: Macmillan and Co., 1910), 46. Additionally, the Clowes version was the model for a medal (IMA inv. TR2983/2) produced in 1937 honoring the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Frans Hals Museum; see E. and A. Silberman Galleries, An Exhibition of Paintings for the Benefit of The Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., exh. cat. (New York: E. and A. Silberman Galleries, 1955), under no. 19. It served, as well, as the model for a ten-guilder note produced by the Nederlandsche Bank in 1968. For an illustration of the bill, see Alice van Diepen and Henriëtte Fuhri Snethlage, Haarlem en Hals (Zwolle: Waanders, 1990), 75. ↩︎

  8. W.R. Valentiner, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Frans Hals and Rembrandt, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1947), no. 19. Compare, for example, the collar with those seen in Seated Man Holding a Branch (about 1645; Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada) and Portrait of Jasper Schade (about 1645; Prague, National Gallery). ↩︎

  9. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 1:163 and 3:L15-1; and Seymour Slive, ed., Frans Hals, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Phaidon, 2014), 311. In spite of praise for its high quality, IRR on the painting has revealed losses extending down to the panel near the proper left contour of the cloak and throughout its surface. IMA conservator Linda Witkowski confirmed that these losses had been filled in during more than one campaign of black overpaint. Significant overpaint is also visible along the contours of the hat, while abrasion is visible in the mouth. Linda Witkowski, conversation with author, 24 June 2012. ↩︎

  10. The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931 (inv. 32.100.8), 32.4 × 28 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-3. See also Jacquelyn N. Coutré, “The Rise and Fall of a Self-Portrait: Valentiner, Liedtke, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Portrait of Frans Hals,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017): DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.6. ↩︎

  11. Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff Collection, 34 × 28 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:no. L15-6. ↩︎

  12. This is the version listed as number 191 in the 1722 inventory of the royal collection in Dresden; it measures 34 × 25 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-2. ↩︎

  13. This painting measures 31.7 × 25.4 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-4. ↩︎

  14. This version is round with a diameter of 17 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-5. ↩︎

  15. Sold Sotheby’s London, April 16, 1997, no. 38; 27 × 23 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-7. This version bears a “FH” monogram. ↩︎

  16. Sold Lucerne, 23–25 August 1928, no. 308, 25 × 19 cm. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3:L15-8. ↩︎

  17. Five of the eight versions (Slive’s L151 through L15-4 and L15-6) vary within just a few centimeters of each other in their dimensions, suggesting the use of a common model. There are slight variations, however: the versions in New York and Germany, for example, show Hals with an open mouth, while the German version also shows the artist with a gaze directed away from the viewer. As Walter Liedtke commented in reference to the New York version, it is hard to assess whether such slight variations reflect “Hals’s intention or that of one of his copyists.” See Walter Liedtke, Frans Hals: Style and Substance (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 302. ↩︎

  18. See, for example, W.R. Valentiner, “New Additions to the Work of Frans Hals,” Art in America 23, no. 3 (June 1935): 89–90; “Long-Hidden Work by Hals is Found,” The New York Times (January 9, 1935): 21; K. G. Boon, Het Zelfportret in de Nederlandsche en Vlaamsche Schilderkunst (Amsterdam: Van Holkema & Warendorf, 1947), 40; Wilbur D. Peat, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Etchings, Drawings, Delftware, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1937), no. 20. ↩︎

  19. See Peter Klein, dendrochronological analysis report, C10047 (2015.28), 1999, Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. More recent investigation by Ian Tyers specifies that the tree from which the board was taken was likely felled after around 1634. See Ian Tyers, “Tree-ring Analysis and Wood Identification of Paintings from the Indianapolis Museum of Art: Dendrochronological Consultancy Report 1082,” January 2019, pp. 17–19, Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. To my knowledge, none of the other versions has undergone dendrochronological analysis. ↩︎

  20. Whether it is glue- or oil-based is uncertain. Linda Witkowski has found no trace of the portrait of a woman that was supposedly painted over the self-portrait and which was allegedly detected by X-ray in 1934. Neither is such an overpainting mentioned in the literature of that period. See Anthony F. Janson and A. Ian Fraser, Handbook of European and American Paintings to 1945: Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1981), n.p. ↩︎

  21. Unusual for Hals, however, is the use of vermilion in the lips and possibly in the cheek, which was likely extended with red lake. See Technical Examination Report by Gregory D. Smith and Linda Witkowski. Of the few pigment analyses done on Hals paintings, vermilion does not appear. Ella Hendriks, K. Levy-van Halm, and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, Report Concerning a Preliminary Technical Investigation of Paintings Exhibited during the Frans Hals Exhibition, Held from May 11 to July 22 1990 in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 1991), 42. ↩︎

  22. Seymour Slive, ed. Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 11. Ella Hendriks, K. Levy-van Halm, and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer highlight that in the documentation surrounding the “Meagre Company” commission in 1636, Hals mentions that a long-term stay in Amsterdam would inhibit his supervision of his volck (“people”) in Amsterdam. See Ella Hendriks, K. Levy-van Halm, and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, Report Concerning a Preliminary Technical Investigation of Paintings Exhibited during the Frans Hals Exhibition, Held from May 11 to July 22 1990 in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 1991), 38. ↩︎

  23. Linda Witkowski has raised the interesting supposition that the hole at upper center on the verso is a nail hole that allowed for easy hanging of the painting in the workshop. Linda Witkowski, conversation with author, 24 June 2012. Along these lines, see Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 302. ↩︎

  24. “…tanta enim in ejus pictura acrimonia et vivacitas, vigor etiam, ut Naturam penicillo provocare nonnumquam videatur, loquuntur id infinita ejus prosoopa, ita colorata ut spirare viedantur.” As quoted in document 116 in Seymour Slive, ed. Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 399. ↩︎

  25. “…in’t schilderen van Pourtretten oft Conterfeyten, staet seer rou en cloeck, vlijtigh ghetoetst en wel ghestelt, plaisant en gheestich om van veer aen te sien daer niet als het leven en schijnt in te ontbreken….” As quoted in document 163 in Seymour Slive, ed. Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 409. ↩︎

  26. “Wat voord Jordaens, en Hals mijn’aandacht met zich heen? / Wat zijn die troniën, die handen, hulsels, kleên? / Wat zijn daar in ’t fluweel, en paarlen meester streeken? / Als was het leeven, juist, het leeven afgekeken, / En in de ver verplaatst.” As quoted in Anna Tummers, “Frans Hals: ‘Rightly Admired by the Greatest Painters,” in Anna Tummers, ed., Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian, exh. cat. (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 2013), 145, n. 35. ↩︎

  27. “Men zegt, dat hy voor een gewoonte had, zyn Pourtretten vet, en zachtsmeltende aan te leggen, en naderhand de penceeltoetsen daar in te brengen, zeggende: Nu moet ‘er het kennelyke van den meester noch in.” As quoted in Arnold Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, 3 vols. (’s-Gravenhage: J. Swart, C. Boucquet, and M. Gaillard, 1753 [fac. Amsterdam: Israël, 1976]), 1:92. ↩︎

  28. For a recent investigation of this concept, see Christopher D. M. Atkins, The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Paintings, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012). ↩︎

  29. In contrast to the bold appearance of Hals’s painted surfaces, his method was quite labor intensive. Examination of the Clowes panel reveals that the chalk ground, a grayish imprimatura made with lead white, and several layers of paint were applied with a brush. In the face, the skin tones have been applied on top of an underlayer of ocher brown, while the black clothing sits on top of an underlayer of brown-black paint. These layers, as Linda Witkowski has noted, vary in thickness. Evidence that the artist worked wet-in-wet can be seen in the white collar, which corresponds to Houbraken’s description that he laid in his portraits “thick and wet” (zachtsmeltende aan te leggen, en naderhand de penceeltoetsen daar in te brengen), as translated in Seymour Slive, ed. Frans Hals, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1989), 17. This process corresponds to the technical research on Hals’s paintings; see Karin Groen and Ella Hendriks, “Frans Hals: A Technical Examination,” in Seymour Slive, ed., Frans Hals, exh. cat. (Munich: Prestel, 1989), and Ella Hendriks, K. Levy-van Halm, and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, Report Concerning a Preliminary Technical Investigation of Paintings Exhibited during the Frans Hals Exhibition, Held from May 11 to July 22 1990 in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 1991). ↩︎

  30. This bravura painterly performance is first seen in his genre paintings, such as The Laughing Boy of about 1625 (The Hague, Mauritshuis), and it then appears in his portraits, as seen in his Jasper Schade of 1645. ↩︎

  31. As Karel van Mander (1548–1606) recounts, the “rough” style required more experience in order to apply these economic strokes resourcefully. Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–1678), in turn, comments that because the interpretation of such a rough style required the active participation of the viewer, it was a manner of painting more easily appreciated by connoisseurs. For a thoughtful analysis of the genesis of the “rough” style and its appreciation by theorists and connoisseurs, see Anna Tummers, “Frans Hals: ‘Rightly Admired by the Greatest Painters,” in Anna Tummers, ed., Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian, exh. cat. (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 2013), 19–37. Van Mander was the first to contrast the “rough” and “neat” styles, though Vasari records that Titian’s paintings required a great deal of effort in spite of their spontaneous-looking surface. See Walter Liedtke, Frans Hals: Style and Substance (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 27. On the relationship between Hals and Rembrandt, see Christopher D. M. Atkins, “Frans Hals in Amsterdam and his Impact on Rembrandt,” in Anna Tummers, ed., Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian, exh. cat. (Haarlem: Frans Hals Museum, 2013), 64–70. ↩︎

  32. See Walter Liedtke, Frans Hals: Style and Substance (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 26. ↩︎

  33. The writer Johan van Gool (1685–1763) attests to the value of portraits and, presumably, self-portraits of Hals. Explaining that portraits have little value outside of the familiar context, he wrote in 1750–51, “Even in famous collection, they [portraits] have no place, unless of course we are talking about portraits of such figures as Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and occasionally, Frans Hals.” See Volker Manuth, “Rembrandt and the Artist’s Self-Portrait: Tradition and Reception,” in Christopher Wright and Quentin Buvelot, eds., Rembrandt by Himself, exh. cat. (The Hague: Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 1999), 48. ↩︎

  34. Volker Manuth, “Rembrandt and the Artist’s Self-Portrait: Tradition and Reception,” in Christopher Wright and Quentin Buvelot, eds., Rembrandt by Himself, exh. cat. (The Hague: Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 1999), 48–56. ↩︎

  35. Ernst van de Wetering, “The Multiple Functions of Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits,” in Christopher Wright and Quentin Buvelot, eds., Rembrandt by Himself, exh. cat. (The Hague: Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 1999), 30. ↩︎

  36. Wackerbarth gave his art collection to the king of Saxony, Friedrich August I, of the House of Wettin, in 1710-11, and may have served as an agent for the king’s purchases as well. For more on Wackerbarth see Carl Niedner, “Der sächsische Kabinettsminister Graf August Christoph von Wackerbarth (Ϯ 1734) und die Königliche Gemäldegalerie in Dresden,” Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 31 (1910), 86-99. ↩︎

  37. The Clowes painting bears the Gemäldegalerie’s red seal on the back of the oak panel. The painting also appears in the 1722 inventory of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie as no. 147; the number 147 appears in paint on the front of the painting at bottom right. In this 1722 inventory, the painting is listed as “147. Franz Halz. Or. Eigen Contrefait. Höhe: 15 Zoll, Breite: 11 Zoll. geliefert: Wackerbarth, befinden sich dato: Gallerie,” as confirmed by Elisabeth Hipp, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, email message to IMA, 7 April 2010. Scholars such as Valentiner have sometimes confused the Clowes version with another version of the Hals portrait also owned by the Dresden Gallery; this other version is listed as no. 191 in the same inventory. See Inv. 1722-1728, Lit. A., Direktion, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Archiv. Between 1859 and 1861 a series of auctions took place to reduce the vast holdings of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie. The Clowes Portrait of Frans Hals was sold at auction in 1860, see Verzeichniss der aus den Vorräthen der Kgl. Gemälde-Galerie zu Dresden den 16. April 1860 u. folg. Tage … zu versteigernden Oel- und Pastell-Gemälde durch Carl Gotthelf Bautzmann (Dresden: E. Blochmann & Sohn, 1860) no. 89. An annotated copy of this auction catalogue can be found at the Archive of the Staatliche Kunstsammlugen Dresden (01/GG/Akte Nr. 6, Bd. 1), which bears the hand-written number “530” in the margin next to no. 89, and the number “530” appears on a paper tag glued to the back of the oak panel. In addition, the Clowes painting appears on a hand-written inventory of paintings slated for auction as number “530”; see Die im Vorrath befindlichen Bilder und deren Verwendung betreffend, 23 July 1858, Direktion, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Archive of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. ↩︎

  38. According to Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, no. 4 (London: Phaidon, 1970–1974), 3: no. L15-I, it was owned by Crouan, then by Lagotellerie. Slive references a note written by Hofstede de Groot in March 1912 which reads: “Komt uit de verzameling Crouan en is door mij in Maart 1912 op verzoek van Brunner te Parisjs bezichtigd ten huize van diens schoonzoon, den heer Lagotellerie in de Rue Varenne te Parijs,” see Card Number 1204012, Fichescollectie Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague. ↩︎

  39. Sales agreement between G.H. A. Clowes and A. Silberman, 22 April 1934, File C10047, Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎