Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 3, 1910.djvu/25

 ix FRANS HALS 5 by far the greater number of which were ascribed to her master himself. 1 In 1631 she acted as godmother to one of Frans Hals' daughters. Her life-sized genre-pieces, in which she comes nearest to her exemplar, show the same delight in merry figures, playing music or drinking ; she renders laughter with equal dexterity. Her colouring is light and varied ; she has a peculiar affection for light grey and light blue. Her drawing is weaker and her modelling more womanly. Some of her pictures are well com- posed ; others affect one less pleasantly by a certain emptiness. Of the numerous relations of Frans Hals, his younger brother DIRCK HALS (1591-1656) must first be mentioned. He painted a large number of richly-coloured genre-pieces with small figures, representing the joyous life of his time both in interiors and in the open air. They are loosely painted and show his brother's broad and direct technique as adapted to a small picture. An interesting example of his direct dependence on his elder brother is afforded by his " Festin Champetre " in the Louvre, as noted under No. 141 below. No fewer than seven sons of Frans Hals handled the brush and palette, according to Dr. Bredius' latest researches in the archives. Of these, JOHANNES (mentioned at Haarlem in 1648 and 1649), HARMEN (1611- 1669), and REYNIER (i630-after 1671) are revealed as artistic personalities in signed pictures. Reynier is the weakest of the three, as is shown by his fully signed "Girl eating Soup" in the Haarlem Museum. Harmen's life-sized groups in the Thieme collection at Leipzig, the Weber Gallery at Hamburg, and the Schwerin and Rheims Museums, show a homely variation of the father's style in similar pictures. 2 They are distinguished also by the fiery reddish-brown of the flesh-tints. Weaker still are the pictures with little figures, at Haarlem, Hermannstadt, Riga, Stockholm, Abbeville, and elsewhere, which often resemble very closely those of Jan Hals, though Jan's larger groups approximate more in style to those of J. M. Molenaer. A large number of paintings of still-life and stable interiors, and of drawings of landscapes with figures and cattle, pass as the works of the younger FRANS HALS (i6i7-23~after 1669), because they bear a monogram containing all the letters of his name. It is to be remarked that the style of none of those works betrays the slightest influence of the father or brother of their reputed painter ; on the contrary, the group of stable- interiors is clearly related to similar works by the Rotterdam painters E. van der Poel and C. Saftleven and P. de Bloot. The drawings in the Uffizi, Florence, at Brunswick, and at Haarlem bear the monogram and dates ranging up to the year 1632. Now, Frans Hals the younger is thought to have been born between 1617 and 1623. Either his birth has been post-dated or the pictures in question must be the work of another painter. A picture at the Hermitage, " The Armourer," signed with a monogram "FHALS," seems most likely to be the work of the younger Frans Hals ; but it differs entirely from the pictures usually assigned to 1 See p. 138, footnote 4, and p. 139, footnotes 2 and 3. 2 Harmen painted the " Portrait of a Man smoking," assigned to Jan Steen, No. 876, in Vol. I. Further examination confirms Bredius' attribution of it to Harmen Hals.