Frans Hals Portraits: A Family Reunion

Frans Hals Portraits: A Family Reunion delves into the work of Frans Hals (1582/83 - 1666), one of the foremost portrait painters of the Dutch Golden Age. This exhibition is the first dedicated to his family group portraiture. The show and the catalogue bring together all four of his family portraits, along with related works by the artist. It examines Hals's approach to family portraiture as a whole, placing it in the context of his complete oeuvre.

The exhibition was inspired by the Toledo Museum of Art's acquisition in 2011 of Frans Hals's Van Campen Family Portrait in a Landscape, alongside the recent conservation of Brussels' Three Children of the Van Campen Family. These two works originally formed a single composition, separated for unknown reasons likely in the late 18th century or early 19th century. The catalogue reunites the surviving sections of the Toledo/Brussels painting and proposes a reconstruction.

It will discuss how the four compositions are constructed, what symbolic elements are included, and what is known about the sitters. The book also presents new discoveries about the Van Campen family, placing them within Haarlem society of the early 1600s.