Frans Hals and Gerrit Bleker: A joint collaboration on a fragmented family portrait (1623-1625)

Frans Hals (1582-1666) is renowned for his vivid family portraits, usually set outdoors. A debate has long taken place as to whether Hals ran a workshop with assistants and specialists who helped him with the production of particular motifs and genres, such as the landscapes in the background of these often-extensive group portraits. In seeking answers, the monumental family portrait of Gijsbert Claesz van Campen (1585-1645) and Maria Jorisdr Palesteyn (1582-1666) with their thirteen children is particularly illuminating. Based on the meticulous stylistic analysis of the three remaining fragments of this painting – Hals’ earliest-known family group portrait – it can now be determined that the landscape was painted by his contemporary, Gerrit Claesz Bleker (1592-1656).

As a celebrated landscape painter of the time, Bleker must have shared a social and professional network with Hals and his commissioners. The manner in which the trees and foliage in the background and the large goat at its centre have been depicted in the family portrait shares a striking resemblance to Bleker’s other work. The painting can therefore be identified as a joint collaboration between the two Haarlem specialists – possibly the only known occurrence.

The dating of the group portrait to circa 1623-1625 also has important implications for another painting by Frans Hals: the double portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laan. Formerly dated around 1622, the year the two were married, the work reveals such an advanced style and technique that it should instead be placed among Hals’ later works from circa 1627. It also explains why Hals asked another landscape specialist to collaborate; Pieter de Molijn’s skills were more in line with Hals’ new approach to vivid portraits in outdoor settings. Therefore, rather than a usual wedding portrait, as is commonly accepted in literature, this much beloved painting was likely a commission on the occasion of the featured couple’s anniversary in 1627.