Bart Cornelis

An illuminating study of the singularly gifted Dutch artist Frans Hals, a true revolutionary in the field of portraiture and one of the most sought-after painters of his generation This beautifully illustrated book offers a fresh scholarly appraisal of Frans Hals, more than 30 years since the last large exhibition devoted to his work. Essays cover all the important aspects of Hals’s oeuvre, including his militia paintings, his spectacular family portraits and his depictions of laughter: he was one of very few artists throughout the history of Western painting who successfully managed to paint people smiling and laughing. The texts also provide an overview of the artist’s life, and examine his extraordinarily virtuoso technique, which involved painting extremely fast straight on to the canvas. The authors set out to place Hals and his work firmly in the context of his time, employing new previously unpublished archival research and technical findings. For the first time, an overview is given of all the apprentices who worked for Hals. Other themes, such as the design for portrait prints or the humour seen in the works of Frans Hals, have never before been treated separately. Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The National Gallery, London (September 30, 2023–January 21, 2024) The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (February 15–June 9, 2024)

An expert look at the life and captivating work of the Dutch painter Nicolaes Maes, Rembrandt’s most famous pupil This book offers a close look at the art of Dutch Golden Age painter Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693). One of Rembrandt’s most talented students, Maes began by painting biblical scenes in the style of his famous teacher. He later produced extraordinary genre pieces, in which the closely observed actions of the main figure, often a woman, have a hushed, almost monumental character. Maes also depicted mothers with children or older women praying or sleeping; such works have placed him among the most popular painters of the Dutch Golden Age. From around 1660, Maes turned exclusively to portraiture, and his elegant style attracted wealthy and eminent clients from Dordrecht and Amsterdam. This generously illustrated volume is the first in English to cover the full range of his repertoire. The authors—curators from the National Gallery, London, and the Mauritshuis, The Hague—bring extensive knowledge to bear for the benefit of specialists and the general public. Published by National Gallery Company in association with the Mauritshuis, The Hague, and Waanders Publishers, Zwolle/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:Mauritshuis (October 17, 2019–January 19, 2020)National Gallery, London (February 22–May 31, 2020)

A Dutch Italianate, Adriaen Van de Velde represents a point of artistic crosscommunication across borders, fusing agricultural landscapes in Holland with mythological Arcadian scenes in Italian settings. He died at the early age of 35, and yet he produced a great number of masterpieces that earned him tremendous posthumous fame in the 18th and 19th centuries, when he was one of the most sought-after names among collectors in Germany, France and England. Compared to Mozart’s chamber music by the renowned art historian Wolfgang Stechow (1896–1974), Van de Velde’s works are delicate and carefully composed and demonstrate his mastery of lighting effects as well as the human figure. His father Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of the Younger were both marine painters, who in the winter of 1672–73 moved from Leiden to England to work in the service of King Charles II. Adriaen, by contrast, almost certainly never travelled outside his native country and chose to paint landscapes rather than seascapes. His meadows, Italianate views, beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes and portraits in landscape settings and are among the very best that the Dutch Golden Age has produced. Moreover, the artist’s drawings are widely considered to be a high point in 17th-century Dutch draughtsmanship. Yet despite his fame in previous centuries and the exquisite quality of his work, there has never been an exhibition devoted to the artist. As well as bringing together 60 of his finest works, the publication will reunite the paintings with their preparatory studies in seductive red chalk or pen and ink for the first time, making it possible to follow very precisely the various phases in the artist’s creative process – perhaps more so than is possible for any other Dutch artist of the period. The publication will therefore offer not only a survey of the artist’s oeuvre but also a rare glimpse of a seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painter at work, from conception to completion.