The Ringling’s portrait of Pieter Jacobsz. Olycan, by the Dutch Baroque master Frans Hals (1582/83 – 1666), is one of the museum’s treasures. Renowned in his own day for his lively brushwork and uncanny ability to capture the vitality of his sitters, Hals continues to be a favorite among art lovers, collectors, and artists alike. In this exhibition, organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, The Ringling’s painting, which was executed about 1639, will be displayed side-by-side with a second portrait by Hals of Olycan (private collection), painted about ten years earlier. Through close examination and comparison of these two portraits of the same person, the exhibition will shed light on Hals’s revolutionary painting technique, and will explain how his work evolved over the decade of the 1630s.
Frans Hals (1582-1666), Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan, 1639, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL