''Shrovetide Revellers'', also known as ''Merrymakers at Shrovetide'', is a 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 Republi ...
Frans Hals, painted in around 1616–17. It is one of the earliest surviving works by Hals, and has been held by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
since 1913. The painting shows people festivities at
Shrovetide
Shrovetide, also known as the Pre-Lenten Season or Forelent, is the Christian period of preparation before the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent.
Shrovetide starts on Septuagesima Sunday, includes Sexagesima Sunday, Quinquagesima S ...
( nl, Carnaval), an annual carnival of food and jollity which takes place before the Christian fasting season of
Lent
Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
.
Painting
The painting shows the face of an elegantly dressed smiling woman raising her right finger to make a point, while a man grabs her shoulder to whisper in her ear: he has a string of herring, eggs and mussels around his neck, with a
pig's trotter
A pig's trotter, also known as a pettitoe, or sometimes known as a pig's foot, is the culinary term for the foot of a pig. The cuts are used in various dishes around the world, and experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s.
Description
Pigs' ...
and a fox tail, symbols of gluttony and foolishness respectively. Another amused gentleman, with a
wurst Wurst may refer to:
*The ground (minced) meat product sausage
*The KMFDM compilation album Würst
''Wurst'' is a compilation album by KMFDM. It was released on September 28, 2010.Peeckelhaeringh'' and ''
Hans Wurst
Hanswurst or Hans Wurst (German for "Johnny Sausage") was a popular coarse-comic figure of German-speaking impromptu comedy. He is "a half doltish, half cunning, partly stupid, partly knowing, enterprising and cowardly, self indulgent and merry f ...
''. Behind them other people are talking and laughing. The flagon Bears the initials "fh".
The female wears much more brightly colored clothing than any of Hals other sitters, and shows a strong resemblance to the young woman portrayed in Hals' '' Yonker Ramp and His Sweetheart''. Both are considered to be genre works today, so the models could be anyone in Hals circle such as his children or pupils. In his 1989 catalog of the international Frans Hals exhibition, Slive included a full color photo of this work to demonstrate Hals' "love of life". The painting itself could not be included in the exhibition because it can never be lent out. In the same year that Slive was writing his exhibition catalog, Claus Grimm rejected the attribution of this painting to Frans Hals, though he conceded it was probably after a painting by Hals, calling it a copy of a lost original.''Entry "k1" in Frans Hals : het gehele oeuvre'', by Claus Grimm, Amsterdam, Meulenhoff/Landshoff, 1990
Hals' positioning of the figures are related to two other known paintings:
File:Frans Hals - Merry Trio.jpg, Hals' ''Merry Trio'' (lost in World War II)
File:After Frans Hals - Shrovetide revellers NK1564.jpg, A period copy, situated outside under the moon
Provenance
The painting was first 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 c ...
in 1883, and after that was included in most catalogs of Hals' works, including by Ernst Wilhelm Moes in 1909, Hofstede de Groot in 1910, by W.R. Valentiner in 1923, and by Gerrit David Gratama in 1946. The Metropolitan Museum of Art lists an Amsterdam sale entry from 1765 mentioning a genre work of ''Vasten-Avond'', or
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession and absolution, the ritual burning of the previous year's Holy Week palms, finalizing one's Lenten ...
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
on the death of Benjamin Altman in 1913. Altman paid $89,102 to acquire it from a Monsieur Cocret in 1907. Cleaning in 1951 uncovered six heads in the background that had been painted out.