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Portrait of a Man
Frans Hals (Dutch, 1582/83–1666)
about 1665
Medium/Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
85.8 x 67 cm (33 3/4 x 26 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Antonie Lilienfeld in memory of Dr. Leon Lilienfeld
Accession Number66.1054
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CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
This picture’s energetic salad of visible brushstrokes was daring for the time and would have appealed only to certain art lovers. Many viewers in the 17th century would have preferred a portrait with tighter brushwork, like the one, also by Hals, to your left, painted some thirty-five years earlier. Comparing the two shows the extraordinary evolution of the artist.
The man here wanted to be shown in a cutting-edge kind of portrait, one that advertised his cosmopolitan taste. He wears his hair long, in the French fashion, and is dressed in a Japanese-style dressing gown made of silk. In 1641, the Dutch received exclusive trading rights for European trade with Japan, allowing them unique access to its luxury products.
The man here wanted to be shown in a cutting-edge kind of portrait, one that advertised his cosmopolitan taste. He wears his hair long, in the French fashion, and is dressed in a Japanese-style dressing gown made of silk. In 1641, the Dutch received exclusive trading rights for European trade with Japan, allowing them unique access to its luxury products.
InscriptionsLower right: F H (monogram)
ProvenanceBy 1873, Dr. Max Strauss, Vienna [see note 1]; sold by Strauss to Dr. Leon Lilienfeld (b. 1869 - d. 1938), Vienna [see note 2]; 1938, by inheritance to his widow, Antonie Schulz Lilienfeld (b. 1876 - d. 1972), Vienna and Gstaad, Switzerland but prevented from export and remained in the custody of Emmerich Hunna (b. 1889 - d. 1964), Vienna [see note 3]; 1941, pawned by Hunna to the Dorotheum, Vienna [see note 4]; May 19, 1944, removed from the Dorotheum and shipped to Alt Aussee, Austria [see note 5]; 1948, returned to Antonie Lilienfeld, Winchester, MA [see note 6]; 1966, gift of Mrs. Lilienfeld to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 14, 1966)
NOTES:
[1] According to Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, trans. Edward G. Hawke, vol. 3 (London, 1910), p. 91, no. 323, this was included in the exhibition "Gemälde alter Meister aus dem Wiener Privatbesitz" (Vienna, 1873), cat. no. 41.
[2] The painting was in the Lilienfeld collection by 1917, when it was published by Gustav Glück, Niederländische Gemälde aus der Sammlung des Herrn Dr. Leon Lilienfeld in Wien (Vienna, 1917), p. 63, cat. no. 25. According to a letter from Mrs. Lilienfeld to Seymour Slive (May 6, 1956; in MFA curatorial file), it had been purchased from Max Strauss.
[3] Just after the Anschluss, or the incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938, the Lilienfelds fled for Italy. Dr. Lilienfeld died of natural causes there, and his wife continued on to Switzerland before immigrating to the United States. Mrs. Lilienfeld sought to export their art collection in 1938, but eight paintings, including the Hals, were prevented from leaving Austria. They remained in the custody of attorney Emmerich Hunna. See Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Vienna: Czernin, 2003), pp. 683, 696-697; and Victoria S. Reed, "Frans Hals, Hitler, and the Lilienfeld Collection," Journal of the History of Collections (2018) [doi: 10/1093/jhc/fhx035].
[4] In order to protect them, Hunna pawned this work and a painting called "Vanitas," then attributed to Dou (MFA accession no. 48.1165), to the Dorotheum auction house for 15,000 RM. Both before and after it was deposited at the Dorotheum, Adolf Hitler's art advisors sought to purchase the Hals portrait for the Führermuseum, the art museum that was being planned for Linz, Austria. Officially, the painting was never acquired for the museum project and it remained in Mrs. Lilienfeld's legal possession.
[5] In 1944, the paintings were removed to the abandoned salt mines in Alt Aussee by the Austrian Monuments Protection Agency (Institut für Denkmalpflege), where they--along with other works stored by the Nazis--were to be kept safe from wartime bombing.
[6] Allied forces located the painting in the Alt Aussee mines in 1945. It remained there for several years as Mrs. Lilienfeld's attorneys sought to repay the debts to the Dorotheum, apply for export authorization, and settle other administrative matters. The paintings by Hals and the Dou were released and shipped to Mrs. Lilienfeld at the MFA in 1948.
NOTES:
[1] According to Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, trans. Edward G. Hawke, vol. 3 (London, 1910), p. 91, no. 323, this was included in the exhibition "Gemälde alter Meister aus dem Wiener Privatbesitz" (Vienna, 1873), cat. no. 41.
[2] The painting was in the Lilienfeld collection by 1917, when it was published by Gustav Glück, Niederländische Gemälde aus der Sammlung des Herrn Dr. Leon Lilienfeld in Wien (Vienna, 1917), p. 63, cat. no. 25. According to a letter from Mrs. Lilienfeld to Seymour Slive (May 6, 1956; in MFA curatorial file), it had been purchased from Max Strauss.
[3] Just after the Anschluss, or the incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938, the Lilienfelds fled for Italy. Dr. Lilienfeld died of natural causes there, and his wife continued on to Switzerland before immigrating to the United States. Mrs. Lilienfeld sought to export their art collection in 1938, but eight paintings, including the Hals, were prevented from leaving Austria. They remained in the custody of attorney Emmerich Hunna. See Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Vienna: Czernin, 2003), pp. 683, 696-697; and Victoria S. Reed, "Frans Hals, Hitler, and the Lilienfeld Collection," Journal of the History of Collections (2018) [doi: 10/1093/jhc/fhx035].
[4] In order to protect them, Hunna pawned this work and a painting called "Vanitas," then attributed to Dou (MFA accession no. 48.1165), to the Dorotheum auction house for 15,000 RM. Both before and after it was deposited at the Dorotheum, Adolf Hitler's art advisors sought to purchase the Hals portrait for the Führermuseum, the art museum that was being planned for Linz, Austria. Officially, the painting was never acquired for the museum project and it remained in Mrs. Lilienfeld's legal possession.
[5] In 1944, the paintings were removed to the abandoned salt mines in Alt Aussee by the Austrian Monuments Protection Agency (Institut für Denkmalpflege), where they--along with other works stored by the Nazis--were to be kept safe from wartime bombing.
[6] Allied forces located the painting in the Alt Aussee mines in 1945. It remained there for several years as Mrs. Lilienfeld's attorneys sought to repay the debts to the Dorotheum, apply for export authorization, and settle other administrative matters. The paintings by Hals and the Dou were released and shipped to Mrs. Lilienfeld at the MFA in 1948.