© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
Page 2 of 14

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing

1630

Frans Hals
(Antwerp 1582/83 – 1666 Haarlem)

oil on copper
16.4 x 12.4 cm
inscribed and dated, center right: “AETAT 40/
ANo 163..”
FH-100Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Liedtke, Walter A. "Portrait of Samuel Ampzing." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
Page 3 of 14

This exquisite portrait, one of three known works that Frans Hals painted

Comparative Figureson copper, depicts the Haarlem clergyman, poet, and historian SamuelAmpzing (1590–1632) holding what must be the book for which he is best
known: Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland (Description
and Praise of the City of Haarlem in Holland), published in Haarlem in
1628. The portrait, painted in 1630, was engraved shortly before or after
Ampzing’s early death on July 29, 1632, by the prolific Haarlem draftsman
and printmaker Jan van de Velde II (1593–1641).[1] The print (fig 1)
reverses the image and slightly reduces its scale. Somewhat later,
perhaps about 1640, the Haarlem printmaker Jonas Suyderhoef (ca.
1613–86) reproduced the picture on a larger scale, also reversing thecomposition (fig 2).[2] Both prints feature an encomium in verse signed“P.S.,” for Petrus Scriverius (1576–1660), the historian and Latin scholar
who was Ampzing’s collaborator in writing the Beschryvinge and also
Hals’s subject in a superb small portrait on wood, dated 1626
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).[3]Fig 1. Jan van de Velde II afterFrans Hals, SamuelAmpzing, 1632, 200 x 123 mm,
engraving, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-P-1898-A-20197

Ampzing was the youngest son of a Haarlem clergyman, Johannes
Assuerus Ampzingius, who was dismissed from service in 1596 forpreaching false views on predestination and other indiscretions.
Nonetheless, his employers, the burgomasters of Haarlem, sent his son
Samuel to Latin School at the city’s expense and then to Leiden University.
Ampzing continued his theological studies at Geneva and Saumur, and in
1616 became a minister in the village of Rijsoord, located between
Rotterdam and Dordrecht. He married Catharina van der Wegen, of
Leiden, in 1616; she died three months before her husband, in April
1642.[4]Residing elsewhere did not dampen Ampzing’s enthusiasm for his nativecity. His first “Praise of Haarlem” (Den Lof van Haerlem), in rhymed verse

Fig 2. Jonas Suyderhoef afterFrans Hals, Samuel Ampzing, ca
1640, engraving, The Leiden
Collection, New York, JSu-100.

with classical allusions, dates from 1616 and was written with the help of
Scriverius (who himself lived in Leiden from 1593 onward).[5] A second
edition of 1621 reflects a shift from a more “pagan” mode to a Christianone, following Ampzing’s appointment as a Haarlem minister in 1619 in St.
Bavo’s cathedral.[6] These first two odes to Haarlem, which were
unillustrated, were published anonymously, but the 1628 edition proudly
bears the author’s name (as announced in his foreword). The new
publication included more information about Haarlem and its history, as
well as a number of engraved views and plans of the city by, among© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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others, Van de Velde (nine plates) and Pieter Saenredam.
Scriverius, who evidently provided funding for this publication, appended
his own treatise, “Laure-crans voor Laurens Coster” (Laurel Wreath forLaurens Coster) to Ampzing’s text.[7] Coster was a Haarlem printercredited locally with the invention of movable type. Also added to thispublication

was

Ampzing’s

importantessay“Taelbericht

derNederlandsche spellinge” (Treatise on Dutch Spelling). Ampzing and
Scriverius were both ardent proponents for the Dutch language, and took
particular exception to the use of words adopted from Latin or French.
Hals made small paintings of this type as models for portrait prints, often
sent to colleagues in other cities and countries as well as collected locally.
His first such portrait may have depicted the preacher Joannes Bogaert (d.
1614) holding an open Bible, but the original is known only from Van de
Velde’s engraving of 1628, and it could have been a painting of larger
size.[8] In 1617 Hals painted a small oval portrait on copper of Theodorus
Schrevelius (1572–1649), a historian and vice-rector of the Latin School in
Haarlem. The painting (14.5 x 12 cm), engraved by Jacob Matham in 1618
(and later by Suyderhoef, perhaps after the print), was acquired by theFrans Hals Museum in 2003.[9] Like the 1626 portrait of Scriverius, that of
Schrevelius (holding a small book) was originally accompanied by apendant painting of his wife (known through copies). In each case, only thescholar’s portrait was reproduced in an engraving, but the companion
pieces underscore the fact that Hals’s small portraits were intended notsolely as models for prints but also as personal or family keepsakes. Hals
used a copper support for the second time, as far as we know, in his
Portrait of a Man (19.9 x 14.1 cm) of 1627 (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche
Museen, Berlin).[10] As in the Scriverius panel (and portrait prints goingback more than thirty years), an illusionistic oval frame opens a window inthe picture field, and the sitter’s hand extends through it.
Hals exchanged this kind of realism for quite another in the Ampzing
portrait, which in its remarkable luminosity takes advantage of the copper
surface in a way not seen in the two earlier examples. The daylight on the
textured wall behind the sitter and the highlights on passages such as thenear sleeve, the collar, the face and the hand (which seems to move, withthe head, in response to the viewer’s interruption) shine and shift with animmediacy that matches that of the sparkling eyes and the completely© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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focused attention of the figure. In the first published description of Hals’s
work, which Ampzing penned for the Beschryvinge of 1628, one canalmost hear the author exclaim, “How dashingly Frans paints people fromlife!” Although Ampzing was citing here the great civic guard picture that
Hals had just completed the previous year, he could as well have beenreferring to this small portrait.[11]The Latin inscription on Van de Velde’s print of 1632 suggests that it might
have been commissioned by Ampzing’s congregation in St. Bavo’s (theGrotekerk, or Great Church, of Haarlem), or at least addressed theirconcerns.[12] For the most part, the stilted verse applauds Ampzing’s
stinging criticism of the Catholic Church (for example, in pamphlets
published in 1630 and 1632) and does not mention the Beschryvinge or
any other of his secular publications.[13] Nevertheless, the book Ampzing
holds in the painting strongly resembles the modest scale of the
Beschryvinge, not the massive Statenbibel (State Bible). In fact, Hals’s
painting may have been intended for reproduction with a different
inscription than the one printed in 1632. The Dutch inscription by
Scriverius on the later Suyderhoef print again lauds him as a Haarlem
teacher but drops all reference to wounded Catholics:
O Haarlem, look upon Ampzing’s appearance, which his city gives us that
we may know him: a shepherd true to the church of God, and proficient in
the Lord’s work, whose edifying verses and poetry uplift the pious with
their deep gravity; rightly is he beloved of all Haarlem’s children and of the
Lord’s people.[14]In this case the inscription clearly implies that the city government
commissioned the engraving, which in its scale seems intended for display
as well as for private contemplation.
It would be good to know who owned Hals’s portrait of Ampzing after thesitter and his wife died in 1632, but no children from the marriage are
known. The earliest trace of the picture is its reported acquisition in The
Hague by Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty, during his service there
as British ambassador (1813–23). The painting descended in his family
until 1892, when it was sold at auction in London; by 1905 it was in theeclectic collection of the railroad entrepreneur Sir William van Horne inMontreal.[15] A more distinguished collector of Dutch pictures, Lord Harold© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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Samuel, owned the portrait between 1966 and 1975 (his collection wasgiven to the City of London in 1987),[16] and it passed through two New
York collections before entering the present one.
-Walter A. Liedtke© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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Endnotes
1. As noted in Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), 3:46, under no. 76, andin Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; London, Royal
Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (London, 1989), under no. 40, earlier
scholars read the now illegible last digit of the date on Hals’s painting as a zero, and this isconsistent with the inscribed age of forty. On the question of whether Van de Velde’s print
was made before or after Ampzing’s death in 1632, see Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “ForInstruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the Vanity and Unrestrainedness of
Our Age,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 199. Van Thiel maintains that since Ampzing’s age is given
as 41 on the engraving of 1632, it must have been made before his forty-second baptismal
day on June 24, 1632. But this assumes that Van de Velde was privy to this information.
Scriverius’s Latin inscription on the print of 1632 does not mention Ampzing’s death, butneither does the same writer’s Dutch verse on Suyderhoef’s engraving, which (without giving
a date) follows Hals’s painting in giving the sitter’s age as forty.
2. Suyderhoef’s earliest known print is his engraving (Hollstein, no. 96), dated 1638, after
Hals’s small portrait of the Haarlem calligrapher and schoolmaster Jean de la Chambre(1638; National Gallery, London). See Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London,
1970–74), no. 122, and Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown,The
Dutch School, 1600–1900, National Gallery Catalogues (London, 1991), 158–59.
3. See Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2007),
274–85, on the pendant portrait of Scriverius and his wife, Anna van der Aar. Petrus
Scriverius served as a model for Van de Velde’s engraving of the same year. Van de Velde
also engraved most of the illustrations in Ampzing’s book of 1628, and the eighteen plates in
his Spiegel, ofte Toneel der ydelheyd ende ongebondenheyd onser eeuwe (Mirror or
Theater of the Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age), of 1633. See Pieter J. J. van Thiel,“For

Instruction

andBetterment:

SamuelAmpzing’s Mirror

of

the

VanityandUnrestrainedness of Our Age,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 182–200.
4. Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “For Instruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the
Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 197, 199.
5. Of course, Ampzing’s debt to the city fathers must have encouraged this publication, as
observed in Elisabeth de Bièvre, “Violence and Virtue: History and Art in the City of
Haarlem,” Art History 11 (1988): 308.
6. In the 1616 edition, Ampzing introduced a number of mythological figures to enhance theimage of Haarlem, but in the revised version, published after he had been made minister in
Haarlem, he supplanted these with references to God’s will.
7. Scriverius’s financial support is surmised from a letter to him from Ampzing in 1627, which is© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
Page 8 of 14

printed in the book; see Gary Schwartz and Marten Jan Bok,Pieter Saenredam: The Painterand His Time (Maarssen and The Hague, 1990), 39.
8. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), 1:28, fig. 10, for the engraving.
9. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), no. 8, pl. 23; Pieter Biesboer, Irene
van Thiel-Stroman, et al., Paintings in Haarlem, 1500–1800: The Collection of the Frans
Hals Museum (Ghent, 2006), 475–76, no. 176.
10. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), no. 48, pl. 82. No corresponding
print is known.
11. Samuel Ampzing, Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland (Haarlem, 1628),
371; see Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
London, Royal Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (London, 1989), 382, underdocument no. 41. The civic guard portrait of 1627 is the Banquet of the Officers of the
Calivermen Civic Guard in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.
12. Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “For Instruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the
Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age ,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 199, reads the line
“Praeconem, pia turba, tuum quid quaeris in aere?” as indicating a commission from thecongregation, but precisely how this would have worked is left unclarified. Van Thiel also
gives the mistaken impression that the Van de Velde print and its inscription came after thaton the Suyderhoef print (“I presume [that the Reformed Congregation was] dissatisfied withthis ritual eulogy” on Suyderhoef’s engraving), which is impossibly dated “ca. 1630/31” inthe caption to his fig. 4. Suyderhoef was twenty years younger than Van de Velde and no
print by him is known to date from before 1638. That Scriverius asks why Ampzing’s
congregation wants his image (see the next note) may be no more than one of his awkward
rhetorical flourishes, rather than a reference to a job assigned to Van de Velde. Portrait
engravings and their inscriptions were often separately solicited by the printer.
13. Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “For Instruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the
Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age ,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 200, gives the full titles of thetwo pamphlets (the Straf-dicht of 1630 and the Suppressie of 1632). Van Thiel’s translationof the Latin inscription (see 199 n. 68) improves on that in Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Exh.
cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Royal Academy of Arts; Haarlem,Frans Hals Museum) (London, 1989), 246, and reads as follows: “There is no need for a
sculpture or painting. Ampzing’s public fame is imperishable. It lives on in the wounded faceof the Ausonian bishop [the pope]. Ah, how many scars will you not see on the Spaniard’s
face! Why, devoted congregation, do you desire to have your herald [Ampzing] in print? The
wounded faces of so many men testify better to him [his legacy]. The wound is still fresh. The
conspicuous scar has not yet healed. And even when the wounds close, the toothmarks willremain.”14. Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “For Instruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age,” Simiolus 24 (1996): 199 n. 67.
15. See Walter Liedtke, “Dutch Paintings in America: The Collectors and Their Ideals,” inGreat
Dutch Paintings from America, ed. Ben Broos et al. (Exh. cat. The Hague, Royal Cabinet of
Paintings Mauritshuis; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) (The Hague
and Zwolle, 1990), 47.
16. Peter C. Sutton, Dutch and Flemish Seventeenth-Century Paintings: The Harold SamuelCollection (Cambridge, 1992).

Provenance[Said to have been acquired from Johannes van Eijk, The Hague, ca. 1820].
Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty, Garbally, County Galway, thence by descent (sale,
Christie’s, London, 12 March 1892, no. 32 [700 guineas to Lesser, who sold it to Wallace]).
Sir William C. Van Horne (1843–1915), Montreal, by 1893, by descent to Miss L. Adaline
Van Horne, Montreal, by 1936, by descent to Mrs. William Covenhoven Van Horne, 1956
[with Edward Speelman, London, 1966].
Lord Harold Samuel, Wych Cross [Edward Speelman, London, 1975].
Lowenthal Collection, New York, 1975–96 [Bob Haboldt, New York, 1996].
Landau Collection, New York, 1996–2007 (Sotheby’s, London, 5 December 2007, no. 27[Johnny van Haeften, London, 2007]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal (now Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), “Seventeenth
Loan Exhibition of Paintings in Oils and Water Colours,” 1893, no. 34 [lent by Sir William C.
Van Horne].
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal (now Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), “Paintings by
Rembrandt and the Great Dutch Painters of the XVII Century,” 1906, no. 5 [lent by Sir
William C. Van Horne].
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Hudson-Fulton Celebration,” 1909, no. 25[lent by Sir William Van Horne, Montreal].
Atlanta, High Museum of Art, “Masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age,” 24 September–10© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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November 1985, no. 29 [lent by the Lowenthal Collection].
New York, National Academy of Design, “Dutch and Flemish Paintings from New YorkPrivate Collections,” 1988, no. 24 [lent by the Lowenthal Collection].
Washington, National Gallery of Art, “Frans Hals,” 1 October–31 December 1989, London,
Royal Academy of Arts, 13 January–8 April 1990, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, 11 May–22
July 1990, no. 40 [lent by the Lowenthal Collection].
Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, “Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings
on Copper, 1575–1775,” 19 December 1998–28 February 1999, Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, 28 March–14 June 1999, The Hague, Royal Cabinet of Paintings
Mauritshuis, 26 June–22 August 1999, no. 25 [lent by the Landau Collection].
Norfolk, The Chrysler Museum of Art, June 2009–August 2010, on loan with the permanentcollection [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, August 2010–July 2011, on loan with thepermanent collection [lent by the present owner].
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum,” 26
July–10 October 2011 [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 2011–February 2013, on loan with thepermanent collection [lent by the present owner].
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, “Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with Rembrandt, Rubens andTitian,” 23 March–28 July 2013, no. 44 [lent by the present owner].
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, andTheir Contemporaries,” 26 October 2014–4 January 2015; Birmingham, Birmingham
Museum of Art, 4 February–26 April 2015, no. 16 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,”
22 February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Moes, E. W. Iconographia Batava: Beredeneerde lijst van geschiderde en gebeeld-houwde
portretten van Noord-Nederlanders in vorige eeuwen. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1897–1905, 2:21,
no. 149.
Conway, Martin. “Sir William van Horne’s Collection at Montreal.” The Connoisseur 12(1905): 137, 140.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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Moes, E. W. Frans Hals, sa vie et son oeuvre . Translated by J. de Boschere. Brussels,
1909, no. 12.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration: Catalogue of an Exhibition Held at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1909, 1:26, no. 25.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith . 8 vols.
London, 1907–27, 3:48–49, no. 151. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Binder, M. J. Frans Hals: His Life and Work . 2 vols. Berlin, 1914,
1:39, 73, no. 128, fig. 72.
Mayer, A. L. “Die Sammlung Sir William van Horne in Montreal.” Der Cicerone 8 (1916): 6,
fig. 2.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Frans Hals, des Meisters Gemalde in 322 Abbildungen. Stuttgart,
1923, 82, 312.
Dülberg, F. Frans Hals ein Leben und ein Werk. Stuttgart, 1930, 100.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Frans Hals Paintings in America. Westport, 1936, 34.
Gratama, G. D. Frans Hals. The Hague, 1943, 55, no. 38.
Hubbard, H. European Paintings in Canadian Collections: Earlier Schools. Toronto, 1956,
151.
Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werkanalyse, Gesamtkatalog. Berlin, 1972, no.
A18b.
Slive, Seymour. Frans Hals. 3 vols. New York, 1970–74, 1:5–7, 125, 140; 2: fig. 139; 3:7, no.
8, 46, no. 76.
Nash, J. M. The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Dutch Painting in the SeventeenthCentury. New York, 1972, 18.
Grimm, Claus, and Montagni, E. C. L’opera completa di Frans Hals. Milan, 1974, 95–96, no.
73. Translated by S. Darses as Tout l’oeuvre peint de Frans Hals. Paris, 1976, no. 73.
Van Thiel, Pieter J. J. “De betekenis van het portret van Verdonok door Frans Hals.”Oud
Holland 94 (1980): 118.
Shore, L., ed. Small Paintings from the Masters: Masterpieces Reproduced in Actual Size.
3 vols. New York, 1981, 2: no. 114.
Duparc, Frits J. Masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age. Exh. cat. Atlanta, High Museum ofArt. Atlanta, 1985, 71, no. 29.
Adams, Ann Jensen and Haverkamp-Begeman, Egbert. Dutch and Flemish Paintings fromNew York Private Collections. New York, 1988, 73, no. 24.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Samuel Ampzing
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Middelkoop, N. and Van Grevenstein, Anne. Frans Hals: Leven werk restauratie .
Amsterdam, 1989, 24–25, fig. G.
Slive, Seymour, ed. Frans Hals. Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; London, Royal
Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. Munich and New York, 1989, 246–47, no.
40.
Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: The Complete Work . New York, 1990, 34, 36. Translated by
Jürgen Riehle from Frans Hals: Das Gesamtwerk. Stuttgart and Zürich, 1989.
Schulze, Sabine, ed. Leselust: Niederländische Malerie von Rembrandt bis Vermeer . Exh.
cat. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle. Frankfurt, 1993, 206, under no. 36, n. 5.
Van der Ree-Scholtens, G. F., et al. Deugd boven geweld: Een geschiedenis van
Haarlem, 1245–1995. Verloren, 1995, 224, no. 10.3.
Van Thiel, Pieter J. J. “For Instruction and Betterment: Samuel Ampzing’s Mirror of the
Vanity and Unrestrainedness of Our Age .” In Ten Essays for a Friend: E. de Jongh 65.
Zwolle, 1996, 96 n. 66.
Komanecky, Michael, ed. Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on
Copper, 1575–1775. Exh. cat. Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins
Musuem of Art; The Hague, Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis. New York, 1999,
202–4, no. 25.
Liedtke, Walter. “Frans Hals: Style and Substance.” In The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bulletin (Summer 2011): 37, 40, no. 40.
Abbing, Michiel Roscam. “Portrait of Samuel Ampzing.” In Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with
Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian. Edited by Anna Tummers and Christopher D. M. Atkins.
Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. Rotterdam, 2013, 139, 155, no. 44.
Weller, Dennis P. Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries .
Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Birmingham, Birmingham Museum of Art.
Raleigh, 2014, 17, 24, 105–7, no. 16.

Versions
Engraved
1. Jan van de Velde II after Frans Hals, Samuel Ampzing, 1632, 200 x 123 mm, engraving,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1898-A-20197.

2. Jonas Suyderhoef after Frans Hals, Samuel Ampzing, ca 1640, engraving, National Galleryof Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.8072.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular-shaped sheet of copper, has been inset in a shallow recess routed
into the front surface of a stained and varnished rectangular-shaped oak panel that is slightly
larger than the copper panel in both directions. Although the copper reverse is obscured by thewood panel, a few areas of green copper corrosion are visible along the painted image, such asalong the figure’s lower lip. There are labels but no wax seals, import stamps or inscriptions
along the wood panel reverse.
The lowest continuous layer is a thin, strongly colored, transparent red-orange, apparently
chosen in anticipation of its contribution to an effect visible in the finished painting.
The paint has been applied thinly but opaquely, with considerable vigor of handling indicative ofHals’s portraits executed after 1630, even those crafted on a small scale. The beard was
executed by applying tones of gray, then drawing lines though the wet paint with a fine point,
exposing red-orange underlayer lines, to suggest the whiskers, and finished off with fine lines ofpaint to evoke volume and highlights.
The surface brushwork is primarily wet-into-wet, with emphatic darks, enlivening color, andhighlights added. The evidence of a multilayered painting process suggests Hals executed thepicture in stages, despite the suggestion of speed conveyed by the wet-into-wet passages.
Inconsistent overlaps of figure and background paint indicate adjustments and corrections to theoutline. This feature is typical of Hals, who set the contours of his subjects only in the last stagesof the painting process. Also typical of Hals is the use of short strokes of umber to demarcate
spaces between forms, such as the fingers and lips.
The painting is unsigned but inscribed in dark paint along the background, center right.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images; in the Xradiograph, the copper support absorbs the radiation and dominates the image produced so only
the rectangular shape of the copper shows.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 1995, before its acquisition, and remains in a goodstate of preservation.[1]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Entry based on a 2012 examination report by Mark S. Tucker, The Aronson Senior
Conservator of Paintings, Vice Chair of Conservation, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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