Past Exhibition

Frans Hals

This vertical portrait painting shows a pale-skinned older woman wearing a full, long-sleeved black dress with a wide white ruff at her neck and white lace cuffs at her wrists. She sits in a curving, low-backed wood chair against a pale brown background. Her body and the chair are angled slightly to our left, and she looks directly at us. She has small eyes, pink, rounded cheeks, and a wide chin. Her lips are parted in a slight smile, and her hair is covered by a starched, sheer white cap that flares at the sides. The ruff around her neck is gathered in accordion-like, narrow figure-eight folds, and it extends flat and stiff, nearly to her shoulders. Close inspection reveals that the dress is woven with a black-on-black brocade pattern and has a line of small black buttons down the front. She holds a small brown leather book tooled with gold ornament in her right hand, on our left, and her other hand rests on the arm of the chair. She wears a gold ring on each hand. An inscription is painted to our left of her head: “AETAT SVAE 60 ANo 1633.”
Frans Hals, Portrait of a Woman Aged Sixty, 1633, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.67

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79
This vertical portrait painting shows a pale-skinned older woman wearing a full, long-sleeved black dress with a wide white ruff at her neck and white lace cuffs at her wrists. She sits in a curving, low-backed wood chair against a pale brown background. Her body and the chair are angled slightly to our left, and she looks directly at us. She has small eyes, pink, rounded cheeks, and a wide chin. Her lips are parted in a slight smile, and her hair is covered by a starched, sheer white cap that flares at the sides. The ruff around her neck is gathered in accordion-like, narrow figure-eight folds, and it extends flat and stiff, nearly to her shoulders. Close inspection reveals that the dress is woven with a black-on-black brocade pattern and has a line of small black buttons down the front. She holds a small brown leather book tooled with gold ornament in her right hand, on our left, and her other hand rests on the arm of the chair. She wears a gold ring on each hand. An inscription is painted to our left of her head: “AETAT SVAE 60 ANo 1633.”
Frans Hals, Portrait of a Woman Aged Sixty, 1633, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.67

Overview: This was the first comprehensive exhibition of Frans Hals' work outside the Netherlands, with 61 paintings and small oil sketches from all phases of his career.

Organization: The Royal Academy of Arts, London, in association with the Frans Halsmuseum in Haarlem, The Netherlands, and the National Gallery of Art organized this show. Seymour Slive, Gleason Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard University, and Christopher Brown, deputy keeper at the National Gallery, London, selected the works with the assistance of Derk Snoep, director of the Frans Halsmuseum, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery. Wheelock was coordinating curator at the National Gallery. Gaillard Ravenel and Mark Leithauser designed the exhibition, and Gordon Anson designed the lighting.

Sponsor: Republic National Bank of New York, Safra Republic Holdings, S.A., Banco Safra, S.A., Brazil, and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities supported the exhibition.

Attendance: 196,865

Catalog: Frans Hals, by Seymour Slive et al. London: Royal Academy of Arts in association with Ludion, Brussels, 1989.

Other Venues:

  • Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/13/1990–04/08/1990
  • Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, The Netherlands, 05/11/1990–07/22/1990

You may also like

Exhibition:  Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985

Exhibition:  The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art