Head of a Laughing Youth c.1630-5
Oil on panel | 49.4 x 38.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405487
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The broad handling, strong characterisation and close-up effect with a steep viewing point of this painting are typical of the type of painting perfected by Frans Hals in which the formal often abuts the informal. The artist would undoubtedly have known of such pictures as the Laughing boy of c.1620-5 by Hals (Mauritshuis, The Hague), in which the exuberance of both the style and image are perhaps no more than an expression of the sheer joy of living. Usually portraits of children or young people by Haarlem painters depicted the subjects singing, playing a musical instrument or holding a domestic pet, all of which betoken allegorical meanings. Laughing youth, dating from c.1630, is a spontaneous, informal portrait, almost certainly uncommissioned. As with works by Hals, its sense of abandon and freedom anticipate later painters such as William Hogarth, Honoré Fragonard and Edouard Manet.
The painting appears in Pyne's illustrated 'Royal Residences' of 1819, hanging in the Presence Chamber at Kensington Palace (RCIN 922150).
Catalogue entry adapted from Enchanting the Eye: Dutch paintings of the Golden Age, London, 2004Provenance
Acquired by George III in 1762 as part of the collection of Joseph Smith, British Consul in Venice, who may have acquired it from Venetian painter, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, who was working in The Hague in 1718.
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Creator(s)
Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
49.4 x 38.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
56.8 x 47.7 x 3.5 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
A boy laughing