Frans Hals in Amsterdam

1. Frans Hals (c. 1582/1584-1666)
The Laughing Cavalier, 1624
Oil on canvas - 83 x 67.3 cm
London, The Wallace Collection
Photo: The Wallace Collection

See the image in its page

Those accustomed to the Dutch museum’s exhibitions will not be disappointed: this is first and foremost the absolute joy of painting, the dazzling freedom of the brushstrokes, the admirable virtuosity of the complexions and draperies, in short the (re)discovery of a - very - great artist. Such clichés come back to life, as do the effigies of all those 17th-century figures whose names - when they are known at all - are hardly famous, unlike the aristocratic portraits in which Velázquez, for example, excelled. The portrait of Frans Hals is a little less famous today than it was in his day, or in the nineteenth century, when the 4th Marquess of Hertford snatched up The Laughing Cavalier from under the nose and beard of James de Rothschild at the Pourtalès sale in 1865. Of course, every self-respecting retrospective dreams of exhibiting its artist’s best-known painting, and you can imagine how delighted the Rijksmuseum is to have brought home this young man with a dashing moustache (ill. 1), who is no more laughing than a certain Scribe is crouching.

These heritage encounters add to the flavour of an exhibition that often takes the form of a family reunion, like an echo of the one held in Toledo and then in Paris via Brussels between autumn 2018 and summer 2019 (see the news item of 9/3/19), but whose rich little catalogue focuses on the place of the family portrait in the work of Frans Hals. Instead, the Rijksmuseum is endeavouring to present to as wide an audience as possible an almost complete panorama of his output, in conditions conducive to contemplation inspired by the success of its previous prestige exhibitions, even if Hals does not have the aura of Vermeer (see article) or the other magical names that usually ensure the show.

2. The Lute Player…