Frans Hals

Portrait of Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653)

Frans Hals
Portrait of Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653)

1625 On view in Room 9

Aletta Hanemans was 19 when she got married and had this portrait painted by Frans Hals. The portrait of the bridegroom – Jacob Olycan – is hanging on the left. Hals was an expert in the art of characterisation, and was regarded as the best portraitist in Haarlem.

Hals is famous for his free, broad brushstrokes. But here his painting is finer, for example in the ‘bridal stomacher’ embroidered in gold. For this portrait commission, Hals may have had less freedom, having to focus more on achieving a good likeness.

Technical details

Facelifts & Make-overs - stories from our conservation studio

The couple are very stylishly dressed, according to the latest Spanish fashion. The conservation treatment once again revealed the details of the outfits, including the many black tones. Jacob’s outfit regained depth and contrast, but this was less true for Aletta because her skirt is quite faded. Hals combined two unstable pigments here – blue smalt and red lake – to create the impression of a changeant fabric: the skirt took on different colours depending on the light. The brown areas were once a bluey-purple, but today the skirt has lost some of its sheen. Only the pink highlights are still intact. The video with a reconstruction created by Fahed Ibrahim shows how this part of the painting would have originally looked.

Discover more stories

More about Frans Hals

Frans Hals is one of the most famous and most extraordinary Dutch painters of the 17th century. He painted lively, sometimes even cheerful, portraits of people from all levels of society: important people, naughty children and even drunks or people who had been declared crazy. Hals had a unique ability to bring his paintings to life with colour and broad brushstrokes. His skilful style inspired the French impressionists, who made many copies of his paintings in the 19th century.

Read the full biography

Pendant

Portrait of Jacob Olycan (1596-1638)

Frans Hals
Portrait of Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653)

1625 On view in Room 9

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Details

General information
Artist Frans Hals (Antwerp 1582/1583 - 1666 Haarlem)
Title Portrait of Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653)
Dated 1625
Object name painting
Inventory number 460
On view in Room 9
Material and technical details
Technique oil
Material canvas
Dimensions 123.8 x 98.3 cm
Inscriptions
Inscription and dated upper left: ÆTAT SVÆ. 19 / ANo 1625

Provenance

Aletta Hanemans, Olycan's widow, Haarlem, 1638-1653; (?) her daughter, Johanna Everswijn-Olycan, Haarlem, 1653-1682 (her inventory, 1658, 'Two likenesses of father and mother painted by Hals'); (?) her husband, Mattheus Everswijn, Haarem, 1682-1688; (?) by inheritance to Olycan's niece, Maria van Sypesteyn-van der Horn and her husband, Cornelis Ascanius van Sypesteyn, Haarlem, after 1688; by inheritance within the Van Sypesteyn family, Haarlem and The Hague, until 1877; anonymous sale (probably jonkheer Jan Willem van Sypesteyn and his wife, jonkvrouwe Adriana Wilhelmina van Vredenburch), Amsterdam, 16 May 1877 (Lugt 37480), nos. 9 and 10 (to Schouten and Van Pappelendam for 8,000 and 4,000 guilders respectively; withdrawn and subsequently purchased together for 19,580 guilders by Van Pappelendam for the Van Sypesteyn family); Van Sypesteyn family, Haarlem, 1877-1880 (to De Stuers for 10,750 guilders); Victor de Stuers, The Hague, 1880; sold by him to the Dutch government, 1881 (10,500 guilders); placed in the Mauritshuis, 1881