Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 3, 1910.djvu/21

 SECTION IX FRANS HALS FRANS HALS was born in Antwerp of parents who belonged to Haarlem. The accepted theory that he was of the patrician or governing class has been rendered doubtful by Moes, who points out that the arms borne by the patrician family of Hals differed from those of Frans Hals' grandson. We do not know the exact year of his birth ; there is no direct contem- porary or trustworthy information on this point. We have, therefore, to deduce the probable date from a combination of several facts. The first is that Frans Hals is mentioned in the biography of Karel Mander as being a pupil of that artist. Now, Van Mander left Haarlem in 1603, in order to devote himself to the literary work on which he was engaged, till his death in 1606 ; therefore Hals must have frequented his studio before 1603. Secondly, Mathias Scheits, who was a pupil of Ph. Wouverman at Haarlem, notes in his copy of Van Mander that Hals died in 1665 or 1666, and was then probably ninety years of age or not much less. As we now know that Hals was buried on September I, 1666, he must have been born in 1576 or not much later. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that Houbraken names the master among the painters of 1580 (Adriaen Stalbemt and David Blok) and of 1581 (Deodatus del Mont). He says that he had found among the papers of an old Haarlem painter, probably Vincent van der Vinne, the burial certificate of Frans Hals, from which it appeared that he died in 1666, aged eighty-five or eighty-six, and therefore was born in the second half of the year I58O. 1 As until now no contem- porary notices and no documents have been found which contradict this theory, there is no reason for departing from it. Yet it remains a matter for surprise in the case of so prolific an artist, that no pictures are extant which he painted before he was thirty-six, and that the only earlier portrait, of which we know through an engraving, was painted when he was thirty-four, namely, the "Johannes Bogaert" of 1614. The darkness 1 E. W. Moes, the latest biographer of Frans Hals, thinks that he was born in 1584. In accepting this date, he neglects the evidence of Mathias Scheits, and attaches an importance to the statements of Weyerman and C. van Noorde which they do not deserve. Van Noorde was a notorious forger, especially of portraits, and Weyerman was little more than a very careless copyist of Houbraken. B VOL. Ill