Scripto | Transcribe Page

FRANS HALS (1584-1666) PORTRAIT OF A BURGOMASTER Canvas, 45 1/2 inches by 36 inches

HALF-LENGTH, He faces three-quarters right, and looks down to the left, past the spectator. His right hand grasps an ornament on the back of a chair; his left hand holds a pair of gloves. He has grey hair, a grey moustache, and pointed beard. He wears a black velvet coat, a big cloak falling from the left shoulder to the right hip, and a large white frilled collar. Painted about 1627.

From the collection of the Earl of Arundel. From the collection of M. Maurice Kann, Paris. In the possession of the Paris dealer, C. Sedelmeyer, "Catalogue of 100 Paintings,: 1895. No. 13. Exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1910. Exhibited at the National Loan Collection, London, 1909. Mentioned in Les Arts, April, 1909. Mentioned in de Groot's Catalogue of Dutch Painters.

"The vitality, the frankly human side of Hals' portraits, strikes us because the character of his sitters has been apparently recognized without searching, keenly caught on the self-revealing instant, and transmitted to the canvas so that it pulsates with life—life itself. Yet no vulgar trickery for illusionary deceit—anything but that. His work is frankly painting. His portrait is a painted man or woman. But herein becomes Hals the superior of all rivals , the inimitable marvel that, while we see his broad dabs and dashes and count the strokes that go to make mustachios or beard—still the person appears in his ego, with the laugh or smile that reveals the soul."—Preyer's "Art of the Netherland Gallleries," pp. 43-46.

23