Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 3, 1910.djvu/22

 2 FRANS HALS SECT. which envelops the period from 1603, the end of his student days with Karel van Mander, to 1614, has not yet been lightened. This is all the more to be regretted, as even his two earliest known works, the " Banquet of the Officers of St. George's Shooting Company of Haarlem " and the portrait of Pieter van der Morsch, both dated 1616, show no traces of the style of Van Mander. Presumably what happened was that the younger generation of Haarlem painters, Frans Hals, H. Pot, Salomon de Bray, Cornelis Engelsz, and Frans de Grebber, were more inclined to attach themselves together and form a school of their own, in which Frans Hals, as the ablest of them, took the lead, than to imitate their masters, the older painters of Haarlem. Frans Hals spent his whole life in Haarlem. He was twice married there, and had a large number of children, who either became artists themselves or married artists. For a short period he was absent from Haarlem, executing commissions for portraits in Amsterdam, and perhaps also in other Dutch towns. The statement that he painted a shooting company group at Delft was due to a lapse of memory on the part of Houbraken. Hals lived in modest circumstances, and in his later years was very poor ; in 1652 his furniture and pictures were distrained upon. Shortly before his death he received several grants from the town poor- relief fund, which also assisted his widow several years later. His first marriage was not a happy one ; still less was his a model household. He beat his wife so severely that he received a grave reprimand from the magistrates. She died a few days after this reprimand was administered. Within the year he married Lysbeth Reynier, who made him a father nine days after the wedding. In later years there were no further complaints about his conduct. He became an artistic member of the Society of Rhetoricians, a member of the Burgher Guard, and a member of the Council of the Painters' Guild. Respected fellow- citizens like Isaac Massa and fellow-artists like Frans Elout, Nicolaes de Camp, and Judith Leyster, acted as sponsors at the baptisms of his children. The list of Frans Hals' sitters includes members of the most dis- tinguished families of Holland, like Guldewagen, Heythuysen, Coymans, De Clercq, Beresteyn, and Schade van Westrum ; Protestant and Catholic divines, like Swalmius, Sibelius, Langelius, Middelhoven, Vigtor, r and Zaffius, Bogardus, Tegularius, and Wickenburg ; men who had won renown in the service of the State, both in peace and war, like Isaac Massa and Pieter van der Broeck ; and, finally, professors and other men of learning whose fame has endured through the centuries, like Acronius, Ampsing, Bor, and Revius, Scriverius, Schrevelius, Tulp, and, above all, Descartes. Numerous painters, who cannot all be identified like the subjects of the portraits belonging to the Chicago Art Institute (185), to Lord Spencer (246), and to Baron de Schlichting (306) also sat to Hals. Among them were, first of all, Anton van Dyck, Jan van de Cappelle, L. van der Kooghe, Van der Vinne, Frans Post, and the caligraphists J. de la Chambre, Moller, and Blevet. No other Haarlem painter enjoyed so much favour with the burgher guards and other corporations as did Frans Hals. He received eight commissions to paint large portrait-groups for them. The number is in