In this bust-length portrait, a portly young man rests his elbow on the back of his chair while he turns and looks directly at the viewer. His round, somewhat pudgy face is framed by shoulder-length curly hair and a black hat that rests squarely on his head. His black jacket is enlivened by a flat white collar with intricate lace edging.
Hals seems to have favored this portrait convention because of its relative informality. The momentary, turning pose and the rapid and bold brushstrokes enhance the lifelike quality of the image. As discussed in Willem Coymans, Hals used this pose at many stages of his career, but particularly in the 1640s. Indeed, the National Gallery of Art’s Willem Coymans, signed and dated 1645, is one of the closest parallels to this image. Not only are the poses alike, but the paintings are also similar in the way that Hals modeled the faces more firmly than the broader, more suggestively rendered costumes. On the basis of such relationships, Seymour Slive has dated this painting about 1645.
Minor variations in technique between these portraits, however, suggest that Portrait of a Young Man must date slightly later than the portrait of Willem Coymans. Hals has animated this sitter’s face with rapidly applied light accents over the broad flesh tones that define the nose, cheeks, lower lip, and forehead. These strokes, just as those that articulate the eyebrows and mustache, are less integrated into the structure of the face than those in the Coymans portrait. Similarly, whereas in the Coymans portrait Hals conveys a sense of the translucent material from which the collar and sleeve are made, and of the elegantly brocaded pattern on the jacket, in the abstract rendering of the costume in Portrait of a Young Man neither the material character of the lace collar nor the lace pattern are suggested to such a degree. Finally, the lion’s-head finial of the chair is depicted with a few wavy strokes that give little information about its structure.
The precise period of execution for this work is difficult to determine because Hals dated so few paintings after 1645. A probable date, however, is 1646/1648. Both the style of the collar and shape of the hat were in fashion in these years, as was shoulder-length hair. Hals’ portrait Adriaen van Ostade, which can be dated about 1646/1648, shows comparable characteristics in the style of costume as well as the abstract way in which it is rendered. That portrait also exhibits the use of highlights to enliven the otherwise firmly structured face and its features.
The double monogram, unique in Hals’ work, has been the subject of multiple interpretations. Slive suggests that a second monogram might have been added after the first one had been painted out for some reason. The two monograms, however, overlap, and there is no evidence of an intervening paint layer between them. In the eighteenth century the double monogram was seen to indicate both the artist and the sitter. In 1736 Horace Walpole described the painting as a self-portrait of Frans Hals, an identification that was repeated in an engraving (in reverse) after the painting, published in 1777. This identification was followed by subsequent Hermitage catalogers. Later, when it became obvious that the sitter was too young to be Frans Hals, he was identified as Frans Hals the Younger (1618–1669).Although Hals’ son would have been the appropriate age for this portrait, no other supporting evidence for this identification exists, so the identity of the sitter and the reason for the double monogram remain mysteries.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
