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Artist
Frans Hals
Title
Portrait of a Man
Date
1634
Culture
Dutch/Flemish
Medium
Oil on oak panel
Dimensions
73.3 x 56.2 cm (28-7/8 x 22-1/8 in.)
Accession Number
1955:003
Credit Line
Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, 1634, oil on oak panel, 73.3 x 56.2 cm (28-7/8 x 22-1/8 in.), Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art
Full view of Portrait of a Man
Description
The subject of Frans Hals' portrait is unknown, although the Latin inscription on the painting gives his age as forty-eight. He wears a black
doublet, or close-fitting jacket, with a pleated white ruff, and a dark mantle draped over his left shoulder. Hals tended to use unified and simplified compositions and to paint subjects in black regent costume rather than in richly embroidered clothes. The overall somber feeling of the painting is relieved by the subject's penetrating eyes and ruddy complexion. Hals' first known portrait dates from 1611; by the 1620s, he was the leading portrait painter in Haarlem. A pendant portrait of the man's wife is in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Related Information / Media

Provenance

W. Unger, Amsterdam, 1872 [1] Van der Willigen, Haarlem and Germany Collection Eduard F. Weber, Hamburg [2] Galerie Weber, Hamburg,
sale at Lepke, Berlin, lot 223, February 20–22, 1912 [3] Collection Marczell de Nemes von Janoshaza, Budapest, 1912–13 Marczell de Nemes, sale at Galerie Manzi, Paris, lot 53 (1,950 francs), June 17–18, 1913 [4] Baron Maurice L. Herzog, Budapest, by 1923–29(?) [5] Wildenstein & Co., New York, by 1936–46(?) [6] Acquired by the Putnam Foundation, 1955 [7]
[1]W. Unger was an artist who made an etching of this portrait in W. Unger and W. Vosmaer, Etchings after Frans Hals (Leyden, 1873).
[2] Karl Woermann, Wissenshaftliches Verzeichnis der älteren Gemälde der Galerie Weber in Hamburg (Dresden, 1907), p. 186–87, no. 223
[3] Wilhem R. Valentiner lists the painting (Frans Hals, Klassiker der Kunst [Stuttgart, 1923], p. 314, no. 124, pl. 124) as “Früher in der Sammlung Wever in Hamburg” [formerly in the Weber collection], but does not give current status. Presumably it sold in the 1912 auction.
[4] Sale price per Seymour Slive (Frans Hals, 3 vols. [London, 1970], 3:56–57, no. 100, and 2:pl.158).
[5] Valentiner, 1923, has the painting with Herzog. The business records of the dealer Duveen, now on microfilm at the Getty Research Institute, contain additional references: Box 248, reel 103 includes 5 items dated 1929 referring to the “Portrait of a Man” by Hals in the Herzog
collection, Budapest.
[6] Wilhem R. Valentiner (Frans Hals Paintings in America [Westport, Connecticut, 1936], no. 46, ill.) has the painting at Wildenstein, as does G. D. Gratama (Frans Hals [The Hague, 1943; 2nd ed., 1946], pp. 39, 55, no. 48, pl. 48). Gratama’s 2nd edition includes a forward in which he explains that the first edition was written in 1938, with publication delayed by World War II. Gratama must have had little or no current information regarding work in America while preparing the 2nd edition in The Hague during the war.
[7] Acquired from Wildenstein, July 25, 1955. Date per Slive, 1970 The Art Loss Register has recommended further investigation of the painting’s provenance through Hungarian authorities, due to the fact that portions of the Maurice L. Herzog collection were looted during the Nazi era. However, the painting is well documented in the United States as early as 1933. While the painting was exhibited in Haarlem, he Netherlands, briefly in 1937, it was again on view in New York by November of that year. Furthermore, authoritative authors (Valentiner, Gratama) place the painting at Wildenstein, New York, in 1936, 1938, and possibly again in 1943–46. Although details of the painting’s ownership during this period are not yet confirmed (for example, was it consigned to Wildenstein, or sold?), its presence in the United States from 1933 onward must have placed it out of harm’s way with respect to Nazi looting. The painting was acquired from Wildenstein by the Putnam Foundation in 1955. To date there is no evidence that it was outside the United States during World War II. At the present time, there is no reason to believe that this painting was looted either in Budapest or France.

Exhibited

Düsseldorf, Kunsthistorische Ausstellung, 1904, Katalogue, cat. by Firmenich-Richartz, p.133, no. 313; Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf,
1912, Katalog der aus der Sammlung des Kgl. Rates Marczell von Nemes-Budapest Ausgestellten Gemälde, no. 41., ill.; Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, 1933, Five Centuries of European Painting, no.14, ill.; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1934, no. 23; The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1935, An Exhibition of Fifty Paintings by Frans Hals, no. 23, pl. 3; Hartford, Wadsworth
Atheneum, 1937, Forty-three Portraits, no.17, ill.; Haarlem, Frans-Hals Museum, 1937, Frans Hals Tentoonstelling, p. 40, no. 50, pl. 51; New
York, Schaeffer Galleries, 1937, Paintings by Frans Hals, no. 9, ilL; Providence, Rhode Island School of Design, 1938, Dutch Paintings in the Seventeenth Century, cat. by Wolfgang Stechow, no. 18, pl. 18; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1947, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by
Frans Hals, Rembrandt, p. 17, no. 5, ill.; New York, Koetser Galleries, 1964, Dutch Painting, no. 12; Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, extended loan, 196o-65.

Literature

Wilhelm von Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei (Braunschweig, 1883), p. 88; Hartung J. von Pflugk, "Hamburg, die Weber'sche Gemaäldesammlung," Repertorium für Kunst-wissenschaft 8 (1885):82; Karl Woermann and Alfred Woltmann, Geschichte der Malerei, 3 vols. In 4 pts. (Leipzig, 1879-88), 3: pt. 2:599; Gerald S. Davies, Frans Hals (London, 1902), p.141, no. 187; E. W. Moes, Frans Hals: Sa Vie et son oeuvre (Brussels,1909), p.1o6, no.132; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisoné of the Works of the Most
Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 8 vols. (London, 1908-27), 3:81, no. 28o; Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, February 20-22, 1912, Sale Galerie Weber, Hamburg, lot 223, ill; Francis de Miomandre, "Les Idees d'un amateur d'art (Collection Marczell de Nemes),“ L’ Art et les Artistes, no. 96 (March 1913): 254, ill.; Gabriel Mourey, "La Collection Marczell de Nemes," Les Arts, no. 138 (June 1913): 21, ill; Galerie Manzi, Joyant, Paris, June 17-18, 1913, Vente Marczell de Nemes, lot 53, ill.;Wilhelm von Bode, ed., Frans Hals: His Life and Work, 2 vols. (London, 1914), 1:44, no. 145, pl. 85a;  Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Frans Hals, Klassiker der Kunst (Stuttgart, 1923), p. 314, no. 124, pl. 124; id., Frans Hals Paintings in America (Westport, Conn., 1936), no. 46, ill; N. S. Trivas, The Paintings of Frans
Hals (New York, 1941), p. 41, no. 46, pl. 68; G. D. Gratama, Frans Hals (The Hague, 1943), pp. 39, 48, no. 48, pl. 48; Agnes Mongan and Elizabeth Mongan, European Paintings in the Timken Art Gallery (San Diego, 1969), pp. 64, 65, 121.-22, no. 22, ill.; Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London,1970), 3:56-57, no. 100, and 2: pl. 158; Claus Grimm, Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werlcanalyse, Gesamtkatalog (Berlin,
1972), pp. 91, 202, no. 65; E. Montagni, L'opera completa di Frans Hals (Milan, 1974), pp. 97-98, no. 87, fig. 87; Timken Art Gallery: European and American Works of Art in the Putnam Foundation Collection (San Diego, 1983), pp. 50-51, 119-20, no. 16, ill.

Note

This record has been reviewed by Timken Museum of Art staff and may be incomplete or contain errors. Our records are constantly revised. Inquiries about provenance are advised to contact the Director of Curatorial Affairs: curator@timkenmuseum.org.