Frans Hals (Antwerp 1581/5 - 1666 Haarlem), Portrait of a woman holding a handkerchief

Inscribed: AETAT. SVAE.36./ANo.1637. oil on canvas. 36½ by 26½ in.; 93 by 67 cm. Estimate 7,000,000—9,000,000 USD

PROVENANCE: Comte de Thiènnes, Kasteel Rumbeke, Belgium, acquired in the 19th century;
His granddaughter, Comtesse de Limburg-Stirum, Warmond, The Netherlands;
M.E. van Gelder, Château Zeecrabbe, Uccle, Belgium, by 1911;
Sir William van Horne, Montreal, by 1912;
Miss Adaline van Horne, by 1936;
Gifted to Mrs. William van Horne, June 14, 1944;¹
Wildenstein and Co., New York;
From whom acquired by Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, March 1973;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, December 8, 1986, lots 52 and 53 (as property of an American Collector);
With Robert Noortman Gallery, London and Maastricht
From whom acquired by the present owner in 1996.

EXHIBITED: Montreal, Art Association of Montreal, Inaugural Loan Exhibition of Paintings, December 1912, no. 67;
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal, A Selection from the Collection of Paintings of the Late Sir William van Horne, K.C. M.G., October 16 - November 5, 1933, no. 31;
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal, Loan Exhibition of Great Paintings: Five Centuries of Dutch Art, March 9 to April 9, 1944, no. 35;
on loan to and exhibited at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1973-79;
on loan and to and exhibited at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1979-86

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: C. Hofstede de Groot, "Twee nieuw aan het licht gekomen portretten van "Frans Hals," in Onze Kunst, vol. XX, 1911, pp. 172-73 (reprinted in French as "Deux portraits nouvellement attribués à Frans Hals," in L'Art Flamand & Hollandais, Revue Mensuelle Illustrée, vol 17, 1912, pp. 1-2, reproduced);
Editor's note, "A propose de deux portraits attribués à Frans Hals," in L'Art Flamand & Hollandais, Revue Mensuelle Illustrée, vol. 20, 1913, p.120;
W. von Bode and M.J. Binder, Frans Hals: sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin 1914, vol. II, no. 162, reproduced;
W. R. Valentiner, Frans Hals. Des Meisters Gemälde (Klassiker der Kunst), Stuttgart and Berlin 1921, no. 156 and p. 316, reproduced (in the second edition of 1923, it appears as no. 167);
W. Drost, Barockmalerei in den germanischen Ländern, Potsdam 1926, pp. 139-140;
F. Dülberg, Frans Hals. Ein Leben und ein Werk, Stuttgart 1930, p.158;
W. R. Valentiner, Frans Hals Paintings in America, Westport, Conn. 1936, no. 61;
G.D. Gratama, Frans Hals, The Hague 1943, p. 56, no. 69, reproduced;
R. H. Hubbard, European Paintings in Canadian Collections. Earlier Schools. Toronto 1956, pp. 81 and 151, reproduced;
S. Slive, Frans Hals, London and New York, 1970-74, vol. III, p. 60, no. 110, reproduced vol. II, pl. 179;
C. Grimm, Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werkanalyse, Gesamtkatalog, Berlin 1972, p. 97 and p. 203, no. 87;
C. Grimm, L'opera completa di Frans Hals, Milan 1974, p.100, no. 119, reproduced;
"Side by Side at the Fogg," in the Harvard Gazette, February 29, 1980, p. 3, reproduced;
C. Grimm, Frans Hals: The Complete Work, English edition, New York 1990, p. 282, cat. no. 88, reproduced;

CATALOGUE NOTE: When he painted The Portrait of a Man Holding Gloves and The Portrait of a Woman Holding a Handkerchief Frans Hals was at the height of his powers as a painter and an interpreter of humanity. His sympathy for the couple and his skill is such that although we do not even know their names, we feel we know this man and woman very well. They are dressed conservatively, almost entirely in black, with no ribbons or embroidery to disturb the simplicity of their costumes. Hals has encased the man in a large cloak that is wrapped around his body like a toga and then looped around his left arm. Underneath is a doublet, with buttons along the sleeve and front and a white ruff, in the man's hand a pair of gray gloves. We recognize the woman as his wife because she wears a vlieger (a sleeveless mantel-like over-gown traditionally worn by married women), a borst (a bodice or stomacher) and a separate skirt. Her bodice is extremely plain, her ruff is finely crimped but quite small and instead of large lace cuffs, she wears only the narrowest cuffs that peep out beneath the dark sleeves of the bodice. She holds a handkerchief or gloves between the fingers of her right hand, and the delicate red pattern on the edge is the single bit of color in her costume.

Although there was a general turning away from ostentation in the Netherlands in the 1630s, the extreme simplicity of the sitters' dress presents a striking contrast to other portraits from the same period. Hals painted Tieleman Roosterman and Catherina Brugman (Slive 93 and 94)² just three years before, but though they are attired in the prevailing black, Roosterman and his wife are beribboned and bejeweled. With their large, showy collars and elaborate lace cuffs, they appear to embody the very essence of the nouveaux riches of Haarlem, while A Man Holding Gloves and A Woman Holding a Handkerchief look rather old-fashioned in comparison. Rather than large cartwheel ruffs or elaborate lace collars, both husband and wife wear small ruffs, which were no longer in style by 1637. Similarly the wife's simple cap would have been remarkably outdated for a woman in her thirties. In order to understand A Man Holding Gloves and A Woman Holding a Handkerchief we must look instead at the Portraits of Lucas de Clerq and Feyntje van Steenkiste, of 1635 (figs. 1 and 2), on loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.³ Lucas de Clerq and Feyntje van Steenkiste were Mennonites, who, in accordance with their religious beliefs, cultivated modesty and shunned ostentation in all facets of life, including appearance. We see this same adherence to tradition as in A Man Holding Gloves and A Woman Holding a Handkerchief. The men are dressed very similarly, even to the way they have their cloaks wrapped around their arms, and the women are even closer, from their flat-paneled bodices, to the size of their ruffs and cuffs and their simple caps. In both cases it is their religion that explains the sitters' extremely conservative dress.

Despite the modesty of their clothing, both husband and wife convey a remarkable sense of self-possession and confidence. Their large forms fill up the canvas and almost seem to press into the viewer's space.⁴ Both husband and wife are forceful yet self-contained. The man poses with his right arm held against his body, his thumb extended up and toward himself in a gesture that telegraphs self-assurance. Hals uses a similar gesture, with minor variations, in several portraits from the 1630s including the Portrait of a Man (Slive 100) in the Timken Art Gallery, San Diego of 1634 and Portait of a Man (Slive 111) in Woburn Abbey, of circa 1635-38. The line of the cloak at the right and the long gloves broaden the sitter and give him a more substantial base, emphasizing his strength. Hals's conception of the woman is equally powerful. She is set almost square to the viewer, the simple panels of her vlieger and bodice creating a wide, nearly flat front that leads down to the expanse of her skirt. The shoulders of her vlieger and the trailing cloak fill the space and make her appear larger than she actually is. The two figures appear to interact across the intervening space: the man's left arm, in its sling-like cloak is opposed by the woman's bent right elbow, while the gloves that spill out and down from his hand are echoed by her handkerchief.

Although Hals's early works — his dynamic group portraits as well as his individual portraits and genre paintings — were all conceived in bright colors and remarkably free brushwork, by the middle of the 1630s, the fashion in art, as well as clothing, had changed. Hals's treatment of A Man Holding Gloves and A Woman Holding a Handkerchief epitomizes the new feeling of restraint. The subjects are each set against a neutral, undefined background. A strong light comes in from the left, shining on the man's broad forehead and the woman's well-fed, rosy cheeks. It strikes the wall behind them, creating a lighter band of color, particularly at the right, that follows their silhouettes and is a foil for the figures and drapery.

Restricting himself to a very limited palette, Hals has created here an almost infinite variety of tone and color. As Slive suggests "this may have been what van Gogh had in mind when he once wrote, half in jest, half in envy, 'that Devil Hals has no less than 27 blacks on his palette.'"⁵ The blacks are indeed extraordinary and no illustration can truly convey their variety. Hals uses firm strokes of cool gray paint to create the effect of the satiny interior of the man's cloak, where it is revealed around his arm and in a sash-like band above his waist. Further below, he uses warmer grays in colliding strokes to suggest the bulky folds of the exterior of the cloak, while he paints the man's right sleeve in alternating commas of rich black and deep gray. On close inspection the woman's apparently simple gown reveals an extraordinary variety of detail and is almost architectural in its construction. At the center are rows of vertical buttons, suggested by quick circles of black, which run between long vertical lines of trim. To the left and right is the taut fabric of the bodice itself, created in short parallels of gray and black. Hals suggests the trim at her wrists with short flicks of black paint that set off the freely drawn lace cuffs beneath, while he uses broader strokes to create the wide panels of her rather stiff skirt. Set against their dark suits, the couple's ruffs gleam out of the darkness. They appear to be brilliant white but are in truth made up of a variety of tones. We see this particularly in the man's ruff, which is built up with grays and even pinks, where we glimpse his skin through the transparent fabric. Hals paints the figures themselves in warm flesh tones with confident strokes that reveal the structure beneath.

It is the remarkable condition of The Portrait of a Man Holding Gloves and The Portrait of a Woman Holding a Handkerchief that allows us to fully appreciate the texture and variety of Hals's brushstrokes and the extraordinarily subtle range of his palette. As Slive describes them, they are "outstanding, superlative works by Hals, in a nearly miraculous state of preservation."⁶

The provenance of The Portrait of a Man Holding Gloves and The Portrait of a Woman Holding a Handkerchief is frustratingly lacking in details. The first reference to them is a short notice by Hofstede de Groot published in Onze Kunst in 1911,⁷ when the pictures were in the collection of M.E. van Gelder. He mistakenly traces their provenance back to Hals through the family of the Comte de Thiènnes. However, an editor's note in L'Art Flamand & Hollandais in 1913 corrects this, citing a letter from the Comtesse de Limburg Stirum, granddaughter of the Comte de Thiènnes, in which she states that the portraits had been acquired in the nineteenth century and that the family was unaware that they were by Hals.⁸ The pictures were subsequently acquired by William Cornelius van Horne, who was one of the most important figures in the development of the North American railway system at the end of the nineteenth century. He collected not only Old Master paintings, but was one of the first people in Canada to buy French Impressionist pictures. In addition to these two portraits by Hals, Horne also owned the Portrait of Samuel Ampzing. M. Conway's reference to a Man Holding Gloves in The Connoisseur, vol. XII, 1905, p. 140, in fact relates to the Ampzing portrait, not the present work, as is mistakenly cited in some of the later literature.

Despite all the research that has been done since the beginning of the twentieth century, including the compilation and review of all the known documents relating to Hals by Irene van Thiel-Stroman,⁹ no new information about the history of A Man Holding a Pair of Gloves and A Woman Holding a Handkerchief has been found that would enable us to identify the sitters. Though we are hopeful that information may come to light in future archival work, for the moment we only know for certain that these sitters are Mennonites aged 37 and 36, but through the genius of Hals's portrayal, the strength and energy of their personalities have been preserved for all to see.

1. According to a manuscript note in the 1944 exhibition catalogue at the Art Association of Montreal. This would have been the wife of Sir William's grandson.
2. See Literature, S. Slive 1972-74, vol. III.
3. Although some their have been some doubts as to whether these two are actually a pair because of the difference in the canvases and grounds and even some questions about the attribution of both, most modern scholars agree that they are autograph works by Hals. See Frans Hals, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., London and Haarlem, 1989-90, pp. 264, nos. 46 and 47 for a discussion of this question and a summary of the related literature.
4. S. Slive, Op. cit., vol. III, no. 109, suggested that both portraits were in fact trimmed on all sides.
5. See Literature, "Side by Side at the Fogg," p. 3.
6. Ibid.
7. See Literature, Hofstede de Groot 1911.
8. See Literature, editor's note 1913.
9. I. van Thiel-Stroman, "The Frans Hals Documents: Written and Printed Sources, 1582-1679," in Frans Hals, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., London and Haarlem, 1989-90, pp. 371-414.

Sotheby's. Important Old Master Paintings, Including European Works of Art. 29 Jan 09. New York www.sothebys.com photo courtesy Sotheby's