A rediscovered portrait by the Dutch master Frans Hals, unseen by scholars for more than half a century, will be offered at Sotheby’s in London on 28 July 2020 with an estimate of £2 million to £3 million. Emerging from a private collection, Portrait of a Man, Half Length, Within a Painted Oval comes fresh to the market.
The work will be presented alongside Rembrandt’s Self-portrait, wearing a ruff and black hat in a cross-category evening sale that brings the season’s top Old Master paintings together with leading Contemporary, Impressionist, Modern and Modern British works spanning more than five centuries.
Hals was the leading portraitist of the Dutch Golden Age, best known for his portraits of the citizens of his native Haarlem. Signed and dated 1635, the painting shows the mature artist working at the height of his powers, the sitter set within an illusionistically rendered stone window opening, a device Hals used throughout much of his career.
The portrait had remained in a New York private collection since its last sale in 1953 and, hidden beneath darkened varnish, was all but forgotten by Hals scholars. A recent programme of cleaning by conservator Martin Bijl revealed the swift, expressive brushwork characteristic of the artist’s technique, and the painting was subsequently examined by leading experts on Hals.
The sale week will also include separate sales for each individual category, all presented together in a three-week exhibition at Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries.
(Press Release)
