PLATE VIII.—NURSE AND CHILD
(Royal Museum, Berlin)
Painted in 1630. This is one of the very best of all Hals' compositions. The Nurse is a buxom lass of North Holland, and the Child, the little son of Mijnheer Julius Ilpensteen, a wealthy German merchant, settled at Haarlem, and engaged in tulip-growing. The expression of the youngster, just about to explode with laughter at something droll which has caught his eye, and then shyly to bury his head in his crooning nurse's bosom, has been caught quite wonderfully. The dress is rich, and the Mechlin lace collar is so actual that it might really be a "piece" cut off and pasted on the canvas! It is said that Hals had been twitted with his fondness for dirty, unkempt children as models for his snapshots of character, here he has vindicated his sense of elegance.
Compare this charming subject with the character-portrait of the "Strandlooper" at Antwerp, and Hals' grip of children's expressions is seen to be emphatic and unlimited.
Haarlem possessed many charitable institutions to which the general title "Hofjes" was attached. It became the happy custom, well on in the seventeenth century, for wealthy citizens to build and endow almshouses, hospitals, and the like—in the first instances as monuments of individual prominence and ultimately as memorials of family pride. Founders and their relatives were the earliest governors, and then administrative powers were merged in trusts and municipal offices, and foremost citizens formed their Boards.
Franz Hals' great good-nature and his merry haphazard way of life made him a favourite everywhere—he was everybody's friend. His appointment in 1643 as "Vinder" of the Haarlem Lodge of the Artists' Guild of St. Luke was very popular. The functions of the office exactly suited the free-and-easy master-painter; they were analogous to those which attached to the corresponding Italian office of provvidetore—controller, caterer, and perhaps toast-master, all rolled into one.
Nobody has testified to Vrouw Lysbeth's satisfaction at this promotion; it was a real ray of sunshine in the gathering clouds of age and anxiety. No doubt she still smiled—not as naïvely as in that garden green in 1630, but hopefully.
But Hals was already beginning to grow indolent. Was it the natural change of life, or was it the effect of self-indulgence? Who shall say? Charity thinks and speaks kindly we know. Anyhow nine long years steal quietly along, and all the signed and dated work he did was just nine portraits and not one of them of marked excellence.
Poverty began to look in at the windows of the house in the Peeuselaarsteeg, what time silence or indolence settled there, but what cared the merry old painter, for love opened the door, and kept it upon the latch—Lysbeth did not chide Franz, and Franz did not vex Lysbeth.
Twenty years or so before Hals had picked up many a splendid subject for his portrait-characterisation or portrait-caricature in Haarlem markets, and many a flighty markt-deern, besides the untidy fish-girl of 1630, had been his model. Then he loved young girls—at seventy his friends were viele deerne of the Kraegs or common taverns.