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Frans Hals Dutch, c. 1582/1583 - 1666 Portrait of a Gentleman, 1650/1652 oil on canvas, 114 x 85 cm (45 x 33 1/2 in.) Widener Collection 1942.9.29 |
Object 6 of 7
Sketchy contours, especially around the hat and cape, are evidence that Hals improvised and adjusted this design as he worked. The long cape, the tassels on the collar, and the gloves dangling idly from one hand indicate that the patron was a person of some means. Like Hals' Adriaen van Ostade, this gentleman has removed his right glove to shake hands.
The very fact that this is a three-quarter-length figure adds to its dignity. Full-length, life-size portraits of individual sitters were very unusual in seventeenth-century Holland, probably because the Dutch burghers associated such large images with aristocratic pretensions; Frans Hals painted only one life-size, full-length likeness of an individual sitter. A three-quarter-length portrait, therefore, is as about as grandiose an image as this matter-of-fact artist produced. Even here, though, Hals candidly included the homely detail of a mole on the handsome sitter's cheek.
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