''The Smoker'' is an oil-on-panel 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 1626 and now in 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 List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Painting

The painting is also known as ''Three Heads'' and shows a boy wearing a tassel collar puffing on a long Dutch clay pipe with his head facing the viewer while another youngster in a wide collar hugs him and behind them a woman wearing a kerchief can be seen holding a tin can.

Name

In his 1910 catalog of Frans Hals works

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 ...

called this painting a copy of a round version and wrote:

133. THE SMOKER AND HIS GIRL. B. 114; M. 211,212. In the centre is the head of a youth, seen almost in full face but inclined to the left. He holds a long clay pipe in his left hand. Behind him to the left is the head of a girl looking at him. Her left hand rests on his left shoulder. In the right background the head of an old woman is sketched in light green. Behind the heads of the youth and girl is a curtain. Very expressive and broadly painted. In excellent preservation. Dated by Bode about 1625. Circular panel, 14 inches in diameter. An octagonal replica on panel, 17 1/2 inches by 18 1/2 inches is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1905 catalogue, No. 234. It was shown at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1887, No. 95; it was then in the collection of R. G. Wilberforce, London. It came into the collection of Henry G. Marquand, New York, who presented it to the Museum in 1888. The smoker's head is very good and quite worthy of Frans Hals ; the other two heads are less good. The right hand of the man shows a variation from the original; here he holds the pipe with the forefinger, not between forefinger and thumb. Besides, the figure of the woman to the right is much bigger and holds a jug. In the Von Hippel collection. Given to Konigsberg with other pictures from the collection through Regierungs-president Von Hippel of Bromberg, 1837. In the Konigsberg Municipal Museum, 1894 catalogue, No. 75.Hofstede de Groot
on The Smoker and his Girl; catalog number 133

This painting could be related to the pendants at

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch dialect, Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germany, second-largest city of the northeastern States of Germany, German ...

in which a boy is wearing a similar split-sleeve jacket. That pair has long been considered to be part of a series on the five senses, where the boy with the flute symbolizes hearing and the drinking boy symbolizes taste: File:Frans Hals - Drinking Boy (Taste) - WGA11089.jpg, '' Boy with a glass and a pewter jug'' File:Frans Hals - Boy holding a Flute (Hearing) - WGA11090.jpg, '' Laughing boy with a flute'' Hals' positioning of the two figures with a major figure accompanied by "an accomplice" was common to many of his paintings of the 1620s: File:1623 Hals Junger Mann und Frau in einem Gasthaus anagoria.JPG, '' Yonker Ramp and his sweetheart'', with an accomplice on the right and another in the background on the right File:Frans Hals - Two Boys Singing - WGA11077.jpg, '' Two Boys singing'', with an accomplice on the left File:Frans Hals 072.jpg, ''

Two laughing boys with mug of beer ''Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Frans Hals, created ''c.'' 1626, showing a ''Kannekijker'' (mug-looker). Someone looking into a mug refers to an old Dutch word for a glutton, greedy for more. This visual t ...

'', with an accomplice on the right File:Frans Hals - St Matthew - Museum of Western European and Oriental Art, Odessa.jpg, '' The evangelist Matthew and the angel'', with an accomplice on the left

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smoker, The Paintings by Frans Hals Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Painting

Name

See also

References