Liz Taylor-owned Dutch master sells for $2M in New York City

NEW YORK (AP).- A 17th-century portrait that once hung in the living room of Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel Air home — and was only recently reattributed to the Dutch master Frans Hals — sold at auction Wednesday for $2 million. “Portrait of a Man,” painted in the early 1630s, went to a buyer bidding by phone at Christie’s sale of Old Masters. Its presale estimate had been $700,000 to $1 million. A Hals scholar, Seymour Slive, had listed the painting as a [...]

Elizabeth Taylor-owned Dutch master Frans Hals painting coming to New York auction

NEW YORK (AP).- A 17th century portrait that once hung over the fireplace of Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel Air home — and only recently reattributed to the Dutch master Frans Hals — is expected to fetch up to $1 million at auction. “Portrait of a Man,” painted in the early 1630s, is being offered at Christie’s sale of Old Masters on Wednesday. A Hals scholar, Seymour Slive, had listed the painting as a “doubtful” Hals in a 1974 catalog, based on a [...]

First ever overview of painted partying in the Golden Age at the Frans Hals Museum

HAARLEM.- This winter it is party time in the Frans Hals Museum. Celebrating in the Golden Age showcases a highly popular subject in seventeenth-century art. Painters like Jan Steen and Frans Hals portrayed countless merry-making folk and lively companies, from peasant fairs and carnival celebrations to lavish al fresco parties, processions and civic guard banquets. The exhibition in the Frans Hals Museum circas 45 paintings, including masterpieces from its own collection and loans from such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum (New [...]

Frans Hals Museum confronts contemporary arts with master paintings of the Golden Age

HAARLEM.- From 7 October 2011 to 8 January 2012, the Frans Hals Museum is presenting paintings by John Currin (1962) in an encounter with the work of Cornelis van Haarlem (1562 – 1638). The American artist John Currin is well known for his realistic paintings in which commonplace scenes alternate with explicitly erotic images. Solo exhibitions of Currin’s work have been staged in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in [...]

Toledo Museum of Art acquires stunning masterwork by Dutch artist Frans Hals

TOLEDO, OH.- The Toledo Museum of Art has acquired a stunning example of portraiture by Dutch Master Frans Hals with the purchase of Family Portrait in a Landscape. Scholar Gregory Martin referred to the painting as “an extraordinary picture for the 1620s that underlines Hals’s inventive genius. Nothing like it—for breadth and relaxed tone—had been painted in the Netherlands before.” Family Portrait in a Landscape (early 1620s) is a large work (60 x 64 ¾ inches/151 x 163.6 cm) that will take its [...]

A Portrait of Holland: The Dutch Landscape in Art Since 1850 at De Hallen Haarlem

HAARLEM.- A green polder countryside with cows, ditches, farmhouses and windmills, boundless vistas, vibrant bulb fields and panoramic river and dune landscapes: every facet of the Dutch landscape can be seen this summer in the exhibition A Portrait of Holland – The Dutch Landscape in Art since 1850 in De Hallen Haarlem. More than a hundred and twenty paintings, watercolours, prints, photographs and films by Dutch artists like Anton Mauve, the Maris brothers, Piet Mondrian, Jan Toorop, Jan Sluijters, M.C. Escher, [...]

The Frans Hals Museum Receives a Historic Gift of Art Worth More than €100 Million

HAARLEM.- The official handover of the largest gift in the museum’s recent history took place today in the Frans Hals Museum. The Elisabeth van Thüringen Fund is donating eleven works of art from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries to the City of Haarlem and the Frans Hals Museum. Among the works there is a large and rare group portrait by Frans Hals. The total value of the gift is at least €100 million. The works can be seen in the [...]

Master Painters Side by Side for the First Time in the Frans Hals Museum

HAARLEM.- The Frans Hals Museum is presenting a work by the British artist Francis Bacon flanked by two monumental paintings by Cornelis van Haarlem. What links these artists is their admiration for Michelangelo. This Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet was a great source of inspiration for them both. The exhibition Conversation Piece II is on view from 3 July to 10 October 2010. With the series ‘Conversation Piece’, the Frans Hals Museum wants to encourage visitors to take a [...]

Hendrick Goltzius’ “Jupiter and Antiope” Among Highlights of Sotheby’s Sale

NEW YORK, NY.- A monumental masterpiece (48 x 70 in. (122 x 178 cm)) by the great 17th century Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius will be offered early next year in Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings in New York on 28 January 2010. Goltzius’ paintings are extremely rare and Jupiter and Antiope is the most important by the artist to appear at auction in more than 25 years (est. $8/12 million, £4.8/7.3 million). Executed in 1612, the painting was [...]

Frans Hals Museum to Show Exhibition of the First Woman to Become Masterpainter

HAARLEM.- Judith Leyster (1609 – 1660) is the most famous female painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Unlike many contemporary female artists, who concentrated on meticulously painting true-to-life flowers and insects, she ventured into more ambitious figure-based projects. Competing with Frans Hals, Leyster chose remarkably similar themes: portraits, children playing, dancing musicians and a drinking actor. She is also known for her innovative and evocative night scenes, in which she experimented with the subtle effects of light and dark. Like [...]