''Portrait of a Man in a Yellowish-gray Jacket'' is an oil-on-panel portrait painting by the

Dutch Golden Age painter Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Repub ...

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...

, painted in 1633 and now in the

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (, ''Dresden State Art Collections'') is a cultural institution in Dresden, Germany, owned by the State of Saxony. It is one of the most renowned and oldest museum institutions in the world, originating from the ...

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

Painting

The painting shows a tastefully dressed young man in a floppy hat seated in a chair facing right with his head at an angle looking at the viewer. We don't know the name of the man or the occasion for which it was painted, but the painting is probably a pendant to the portrait of a man in a black jacket, which it matches in shape, size, period, and position of the figures. If so, it was possibly once a pair of portraits of organisation owners, or two men who lived together, because Hals was quite consistent with his pendant wedding portraits; positioning the man on the left and the woman on the right. This allowed the light which always shines from the left in his paintings, to shine directly on the woman's face and not the man's. In this case however, the portrait on the left is painted in lighter tones than the portrait on the right. Possibly these pendant portraits were made to decorate a building, so that people who worked for them or visited the premises could know what the owners looked like. File:Frans Hals - Portrait of a Man - WGA11126.jpg File:Frans Hals - portrait of a man in a black jacket c 1633.jpg

Provenance

The painting is one of the best documented paintings in Hals' oeuvre, documented by

Wilhelm von Bode Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now calle ...

in 1883, by

Ernst Wilhelm Moes Ernst Wilhelm Moes (1864 – 1912), was a Dutch art historian and director of the print cabinet for the Rijksmuseum. Biography According to the NNBW he studied art at the University of Amsterdam and became a print collector while still a stud ...

in 1909,

Hofstede de Groot Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator. Life He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Germa ...

in 1910, by W.R. Valentiner in 1923, Trivas in 1941 and by

Gerrit David Gratama Gerrit David Gratama (22 March 1874 – 20 August 1965), was a Dutch artist, writer, and director of the Frans Hals Museum. Biography He was born in Groningen and was the brother of the architect Jan Gratama and painter Lina Gratama (1875- ...

in 1946. Both Seymour Slive and

Claus Grimm Claus Grimm (born November 22, 1940) is a German art historian and from its founding in 1983 until 2007 he was director of the Bavarian historical institute Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte in Augsburg. He is considered an authority on Frans Hals ...

agree it is by Hals. In 1910 Hofstede de Groot recorded the two small portraits as pendants:

271. PORTRAIT OF A MAN SEATED. B. 105; M. 169. Half-length. He is turned three-quarters right, and looks at the spectator. His left hand is pressed to his side. He has a light-brown moustache and pointed beard, and dark-brown hair. He wears a broad- brimmed black hat of soft felt, a yellowish-grey coat, a close-fitting white collar edged with lace, and a white wristband on his right hand. Grey background. endant to 272. Panel, 9 1/2 inches by 7 1/2 inches. A copy was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1900, No. 32, and was in the sale: James Orrock, London, June 4, 1904, No. 265 (for 330 pounds and 15 schillings). Acquired from the
Wallenstein Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein () (24 September 1583 – 25 February 1634), also von Waldstein ( cs, Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna), was a Bohemian military leader and statesman who fought on the Catholic side during the Th ...
collection,
Dux ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, ''dux' ...
, 1741. In the Dresden Gallery, 1908 catalogue, No. 1358. 272. PORTRAIT OF A MAN. B. 106; M. 170. Half-length. His figure is in profile to the left; his head is turned three-quarters left. He looks at the spectator. The left hand, though not shown, is obviously pressed to his side. He has a slight fair moustache and imperial, and dark- brown curls. He wears a broad-brimmed black hat of soft felt and a black coat, showing the white shirt, with a close-fitting lace collar. endant to 271. Panel, 9 1/2 inches by 8 inches. Acquired from the Wallenstein collection, Dux, 1741. In the Dresden Gallery, 1908 catalogue, No. 1359.Hofstede de Groot
on "Portrait of a Man Seated" and "Portrait of a Man"; catalog numbers 271 & 272

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Portrait of a Man in a Yellowish-Gray Jacket Man in a Yellowish-Gray Jacket Paintings in Dresden 1633 paintings Portraits of men