The identity of the impish young man in this oil sketch who turns in his chair and gazes out with a smile at the viewer is not known. Whether Hals’ perceptive characterization was exclusively due to his artistic genius or was aided by a personal relationship to the sitter may never be determined. It should nonetheless be noted that Hals’ son Harmen Hals (1611–1669) would have been in his middle to late teens when this sketch was painted, 1626/1629. This age seems probable for the sitter, particularly given his fashionable wardrobe and sporty mustache.
That the painting depicts a specific individual can be argued based not solely on the characterization but also on the oval illusionistic frame that surrounds the young man. Hals frequently included such painted framing devices on small-scale portraits in the 1610s and 1620s. An identical painted frame, for example, acts as a foil for the sitter’s expressive gesture in Hals’ Portrait of a Man, 1627 [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, 1627, oil on copper, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie. Photo: bpk, Berlin / Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY. Although the dramatic effect of that man’s gesture as he reaches through the picture plane is more pronounced than in the Washington painting, the elbow of the young man in this work does extend slightly beyond the painted frame. Hals’ use of the oval frame in this painting was more important compositionally, as it reinforces the dynamic spatial character of the pose. A number of Hals’ small-scale portraits were engraved, and the theory has been advanced that the painted sketches were intended as modelli for that purpose. While it may well be that those who wished to have their portraits engraved, primarily preachers and scholars, specifically requested small-scale portraits to present to reproductive engravers, not all portraits of this scale—among them A Young Man in a Large Hat—were engraved. Thus it should not be assumed that the sketch’s primary function was as an engraver’s model. A strong tradition of hanging small-scale painted portraits existed in the Netherlands, particularly in Haarlem, during the 1620s and 1630s. In Jan Miense Molenaer’s Family Portrait Making Music, c. 1636 (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, on loan from the Instituut Collectie Nederland), for example, a series of small portraits of family members can be seen on the back wall of the room.
If Hals’ small portrait of a young man fits into this tradition, it nevertheless breaks from it in a fundamental way. As the figure turns in his chair and smiles at the viewer, he seems related more to genre scenes than to contemporary portraits, which are more formal. Hals’ painting technique, moreover, is extremely free. The closest stylistic parallels in his work are with genre figures, in particular the Boy Holding a Flute, c. 1626–1628 (Staatliches Museum, Schwerin), which suggests that in this memorable sketch he sought to merge portrait and genre imagery.
The connections to genre painting are evident in the relationship of the pose of the young man with those of figures in contemporary “merry company” scenes, particularly in the works by Hals’ younger brother Dirck. The National Gallery’s picture is even closer to Dirck’s imagery when one considers the freely executed oil sketches on paper that served as models for figures in such paintings, for example a Seated Man, c. 1627, now in Paris (Institut Néerlandais). In another of Dirck’s sketches, Seated Man with a Pipe, c. 1627 (Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam), the figure leans over exactly the same type of chair as does the young man in the Washington oil sketch. While comparisons with these studies help place A Young Man in a Large Hat thematically and chronologically, they also demonstrate the masterful execution of Frans Hals’ Washington panel. By contrast, Dirck never developed the ability to suggest the form of a hand with bold, swelling touches of the brush or to soften the modeling of a face with a sequence of short parallel strokes, effects so brilliantly rendered by his older brother in this work. Here, furthermore, Hals used a wide range of quick notations to animate the costume, from the broad angular strokes of the jacket sleeve to the delicate touches of the brush that indicate the white lace.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
