Sotheby's 2008
Sotheby's holds the auction record for a Hals, selling Portrait of Willem Heythuysen for over £7 million in 2008
Sotheby's 2025
Sotheby's May 2025
Boy, Possibly Frans Hals (II), Playing the Violin; Girl, Possibly Sara Hals, Singing"
Christie's 1999
Frans Hals (Antwerp 1582/3-1666 Haarlem)
Portrait of a gentleman, three-quarter-length, in a black coat and cape with a black hat, his gloves in his left hand
Price realisedGBP 2,201,500
Estimate
GBP 1,200,000 – GBP 1,800,000
July 2025
FRANS HALS (ANTWERP 1582⁄3-1666 HAARLEM)
Portrait of Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617-1666), half-length, in black dress, holding a book
Price realisedGBP 693,000
Estimate
GBP 600,000 – GBP 800,000
While the paintings were on loan to The Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the renowned Hals scholar Seymour Slive observed that they are ‘outstanding, superlative works… in a near miraculous state of preservation.’ Their exceptional condition means that Hals’ fluid brushwork and subtly toned palette can be clearly appreciated.
Eric Albada Jelgersma (1939-2018) was just one of several illustrious owners of the Hals pictures, which are said to be the finest pair of portraits by the artist remaining in private hands. During the 19th century they belonged to the family of Count de Thiènnes, who lived in Castle Rumbeke, one of the oldest renaissance castles in Belgium.
In the 20th century they passed through the hands of Canadian railroad magnate and pioneering Impressionist collector William Cornelius Van Horne and the American diplomat J. William Middendorf II, before Jelgersma acquired them in 1996 from Robert Noortman, the Dutch art dealer and decade-long director of TEFAF art fair.
At that time Albada Jelgersma, a businessman from the south of Holland who had amassed a fortune in the supermarket wholesale industry, was well on his way to establishing his reputation as a connoisseur of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masterpieces, acquiring works that covered each genre of Golden Age painting.
In the 20th century they passed through the hands of Canadian railroad magnate and pioneering Impressionist collector William Cornelius Van Horne and the American diplomat J. William Middendorf II, before Jelgersma acquired them in 1996 from Robert Noortman, the Dutch art dealer and decade-long director of TEFAF art fair.
At that time Albada Jelgersma, a businessman from the south of Holland who had amassed a fortune in the supermarket wholesale industry, was well on his way to establishing his reputation as a connoisseur of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masterpieces, acquiring works that covered each genre of Golden Age painting.
Christies 2024
FRANS HALS (ANTWERP 1582⁄3-1666 HAARLEM)
Portrait of a gentleman of the de Wolff family, possibly Joost de Wolff (1576⁄7-?after 1652), half-length
Price realisedGBP 5,715,000
Estimate
GBP 4,000,000 – GBP 6,000,000
