“This is Frans Hals at its best,” says museum director Lidewij de Koekkoek in Haarlem. “The brush strokes, who dance and sing. Typically Frans Hals.”
‘This will never succeed’
Violin -playing boy and singing girl were bought by the museum at Sotheby’s auction house in collaboration with, among others, the Mauritshuis. But it wasn’t easy. “I thought, this will never work,” says De Koekkoek about the moment she saw the works for the first time.
Yet the team continued. “We had to go for it,” says curator Christi Klinkert. And they did that – successfully. Their bid was accepted and suddenly the paintings were from them. “We were crazy,” says Klinkert.
Possibly neck ‘own children
The small panels, painted around 1628, show two children who make music. What makes the paintings extra special: it could just be that Hals has captured its own son and daughter here. They give a wonderful glimpse into normal life in the 17th century.
The two paintings will be exhibited in the turn in Haarlem and The Hague. From mid-July they can first be seen in the Frans Hals Museum, where they form a prelude to the large exhibition Hals-Rembrandt in November 2026. In the fall they travel on to the Mauritshuis, where they get a role in a presentation about genre painting in early 17th-century Holland.