In the Schwerin Gallery is a "Portrait of a Man" with a good deal of Franz Hals about it, variously attributed to him and to Van Dyck. Maybe it is the one painted in Haarlem that hot June day in 1630.
Eight superb portraits by Hals were dated this self-same year: "The Group of the Beresteyn Family," and "[The Gipsy Girl]" (La Bohémienne), at the Louvre; "[The Mandoline Player]"—Der Schalksnaar, in Baron Gustave Rothschild's Collection in Paris; "[Nurse and Child]," and "The Jolly Toper," at the Royal Gallery in Berlin; "Portrait of a Man" ("ætat suæ 36") at Buckingham Palace; Mijnheer Willem Van Heythuysen, at the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna—the full-length, Velazquez-like standing portrait; and "Portrait of a Young Girl," of the Beresteyn family at Haarlem.
Der Schalksnaar—called also "The Fool," "The Buffoon," "The Jester," and, far more suitably, "[The Mandoline Player]"—is allowed to be the finest character-portrait in the world. Velazquez and Rembrandt never did anything so acutely life-like.
It is a "snapshot," so to speak, of Adriaen Brouwer, one of Hals' favourite and most distinguished pupils, whose renown as a painter of peasant genre was equalled by his fame as an archplayer of practical jokes and as a brilliant musician and improvisatore. Here he is, in fancy Spanish dress, red and yellow, with a real old Hispano-Moorish mandoline. His nickname in the studios was "Der Naar!" "Funny Fellow!" His face—clean-shaven, but still something of a stranger to soap and water—reflects, with amazing truthfulness and vitality, the emotions of the moment.
He laid a wager that he would make his innamorata peep out of her window and wave her hand at him. The staccato notes of the serenade have not yet quite died away, the strummer's hand has not relaxed its tension on the strings of the instrument, as the singer throws up a rapid glance of recognition.
"[Nurse and Child]" is as charming as anything in all the works of Franz Hals. Nothing can be imagined more natural, more simple, more appealing. At first sight the woman—she may be thirty—appears posed, but her expression is that of momentary abstraction from the restless exigencies of nursing. She is goodness and gentleness personified, and her pinned-up cap lappels tell of busy little fingers close by.
The baby is to the life. He is a vigorous youngster, the latest little son of the ancient North Holland family of Ilpenstein, prominent in Haarlem story. He has grabbed his nurse's brooch whilst he turns to have a good look at you, and, presto, he will bury his head in her kindly bosom with a merry laugh. His face is a tour de force—that of a rare critic, as all healthy babies are. I question whether any painter has painted a child's coming smile as Hals has done here.
The dress, a splendid piece of gold brocade in colours, must be an inspiration from Pieter Breughel, "le Velours" (1568-1625), whose mastery of glossy patterned stuffs is almost inimitable. The lace looks as if Hals had just cut lengths of rare Mechlin point and pasted them upon his canvas. Why, we can count every thread and knot!
The year that gave date to these widely differing, but admirably agreeing, character-portraits also witnessed the foundation of Franz Hals' Life School. Very soon after the death of Van Mander, in 1606, the famous Academy of Painting began to decline in popularity. The dissolution of partnership between Cornelissen and Goltzius, and their departure from Haarlem, caused its doors to be closed.