The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals Antique Print Picture 1910 #39

Description: The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals Antique Print 1910A colour print from a disbound art book from 1910. The reverse side is blank. Suitable for framing, the actual picture size is approx 7.125" x 9" or 18 cm x 23 cm printed on textured paper and one side mounted to heavyweight textured paper which forms a border. Page size including border mount approx 9" x 11" This is an antique print from 1910 not a modern copy and does show signs of age or previous use commensurate with the age of the print including foxing or marks on the surrounding mount. Please view the scans as they form part of the description. All pictures will be sent bagged and in a board backed envelope for protection in transit. While every care is taken to ensure my scans or photos accurately represent the item offered for sale, due to differences in monitors and internet pages my pictures may not be an exact match in brightness or contrast to the actual item. Text taken from the opposite page. Please note this cannot be supplied with the print. Any spelling errors are due to the OCR program used. THE LAUGHING CAVALIER By FRANS HALS (1580?-1666) IN THE WALLACE COLLECTION, HERTFORD HOUSE It is of course a misnomer, for the "Cavalier" is but smiling; a subtle, almost supercilious smile such as Hals alone could suggest. Had he wished to paint a laugh he could have done so, for none could represent a hearty laugh on canvas as he could, as witness "The Laughing Women" in the Louvre, and the laughing urchin in the Glasgow Gallery. The " Cavalier" was painted as the " Portrait of an Officer"; the name by which it is now known was bestowed upon it long afterwards, and has clung to it ever since. The picture was painted, as the date in the right hand top corner—under the age of the sitter—duly records, in 1624, when the artist was forty-three years of age, and producing his very finest work. It was formerly in the Nieuwenhuys Collection and was purchased thence by Count Pourtalès for £80. At the Pourtaiès sale in 1865 the Marquis of Hertford made the first—and only—bid for it, but it was the sum of £2,040, to the consternation of the dealers, for such an amount had never before been paid for a work by Hals. But the Marquis had set his heart on the "Laughing Cavalier" and secured it. It was one of his favourite pictures, and was given a place in the "rotonde" of his Paris house, the apartment in which hung the most valued of his treasures. It is, without doubt, the finest work of the master in England ; a work which displays to the full the wondrous skill of this most gifted Dutch man. The "Cavalier" seems to breathe, the "smile" seems as though arrested in its course. So highly finished in the treatment of the dress, so evanescent in the expression of the man, it is a marvel of workmanship. Frans Hals was born at Antwerp in 1580 or 1581, but it was at Haarlem that most of his life was spent. And a curious life it was. There are stories of low taverns and drinking bouts, of a forced sale of the artist's effects by a baker for his bread bill ; of a dependency upon the municipality for rent and firing ; of an annuity of 200 forms, and at the end, of a widow dependent upon outdoor relief. And now his pictures are purchased, when opportunity serves, at prices that can only be termed princely

Price: 3.49 GBP

Location: Dereham

End Time: 2025-02-12T07:33:25.000Z

Shipping Cost: 19.62 GBP