The Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem have jointly purchased two paintings by Frans Hals. These are Violin-Playing Boy and Singing Girl.
The paintings were made around 1628. The portrayed children are possibly the children of Hals: Frans and Sara. The artist was known for his paintings of ordinary people and everyday scenes.
The works cost $7.8 million (€6.85 million). A maximum of 40 percent of this (€2.74 million) is being paid from the National Acquisition Fund of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Furthermore, the Rembrandt Association, the Mondriaan Fund, the Association of Friends of the Frans Hals Museum, the VriendenLoterij, and the municipality of Haarlem contributed to the purchase.
The works will be displayed alternately in The Hague and Haarlem. From July, the paintings will hang in the Frans Hals Museum, in September they will go to the Mauritshuis, and from November 2026 they will be part of the Hals-Rembrandt exhibition in Haarlem.
“It is wonderful that these paintings by Frans Hals, which were previously in the hands of a foreign individual, are back home. They offer a glimpse into daily life in the seventeenth century and are a wonderful example of Hals’s characteristic loose brushstroke,” says Minister Eppo Bruins of Education, Culture and Science.
Director Lidewij de Koekkoek of the Frans Hals Museum is “extremely happy” with the artworks. “It is one of the most beautiful acquisitions for us,” she says. According to De Koekkoek, it was still uncertain whether sufficient funds could be found for the paintings, but it worked out just in time. “Fortunately, there was only one counter-bidder and the price was not driven up.”
According to the director, the intention is that the portraits will stay together. “They have been together since their creation, we see them as one entity.”