AN ART PURCHASE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 286, 27 August 1908, Page 7

AN ART PURCHASE.

HALS'S WORK. y (BT TELEGRAM—riIESS ASSOCIATION—COPTKIGHT.) London, August 25. It is understood that the trustees of tho National Gallery have purchased for £25,000 a portrait group attributed to Franz Hals. AN EMINENT PORTRAIT PAINTER. Franz Hals was a portrait painter second only to Rembrandt. Born at Antwerp in 1584, he became a pupil of .Van Mander, painter and historian. He soon left behind him tho practice of the time illustrated by Schroeel and Moro, and, emancipating himself gradually from tradition, produced pictures remarkable for truth and dexterity of hand. Writos ono authority:— "We prize in Rembrandt tho golden glow of effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, bnt of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was tho bass, Ilals tho treble. Tho latter is perhaps more expressive than the former. He seizes with rare intuition a moment in the life of his sitters. . What nature displays in that moment he reproduces thoroughly 'in a very' delicate scale of colour,' and with a perfect mastery over every forirt of expression. He. becomes so clever at last that exact tone, light and shade, and modelling are all obtained with a' few marked and fluid strokes of tho brush." ; Some of his work suggests some study of the masterpieces of Rembrandt, but "Rembrandt's exainplo did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into grey and silvery harmonies of tone, and two of his canvases, executed in 16G-1, the Regents' and Regentesses of the Oudermannenhuis at Haarlem, are masterpieces of colour, though in substanco all but monochromes. . .

Hals's sitters wero taken in every class of society—admirals, generals, and burgomasters pairing with merchants, lawyers, clerks." 'l'ho purchase of some of Hals's work for Eng-' land is important, for while there arc portraits by Hals in many Conthiental galleries,, few had found their way across the Channel. Among these wero Sir Richard Wallace's Cavalier, Lord Chesterfield's Toper, and Lord Radnor's Likenesses of an Old Iran and Woman. Hals was of dissolute habits, was often in straits, and died in IGGG. Of seven sons, fivo wero painters, of whom Franz and Dirk liavo left something of a name.