IS IT GENUINE?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 5

IS IT GENUINE?

FRANS HALS PICTURE IN ART GALLERY LIBRARIAN HAS DOUBTS Is the, Frans Hals painting in the Art Gallery a genuine work? A Melbourne visitor, Dr. A. S. Joske, has declared his doubt, but Mr. John Barr, City Librarian, has doubled it for some time. Dr. Joske, who is a trustee of the Melbourne Public Library and Art Gallery, declared that the picture attributed to Hals “Boys Playing Cards” in the Auckland Gallery is dirty and badly hung. “I deny that the picture is dirty,” said Mr. Barr today. “Jt was one of the pictures in the gallery which was surface-cleaned this year. Mr. Barr confessed that it. was certainly not hanging in the best position, but that tvas due to the fact that the gallery was over-crowded. Many pictures could not be hung on the line of sight, but had to hang one above the other.

The Frans Hals is one of the pic tures in the Grey collection, and with a large number of others was be-

queathed to the city by Sir George Grey in 1882. It tvas this collection which expedited the building of an Art Gallery in Auckland. This was opened in ISSB. Unfortunately no records came with the Grey collection, nor have any records been obtainable since. IJ, is, therefore, impossible to say definitely that the pictures in the Grey collection are by the old masters to whom they are attributed.

Mr. Barr himself doubts their authenticity, and in the catalogue lias “attributed" certain pictures to the old masters instead of stating that they are genuine works. He does not claim that they are genuine works, although they might be. However, he considers that it is better to doubt them until they are proved otherwise. SYSTEM OF CLEANING

a system of cleaning the pictures in the gallery was started and the Hals was one of the first to be treated. The object, is t.o clean out the minute fungus which grows on the glass and the pictures, and to destroy the borer, which has attacked many of the frames and stretchers. A well-known art connoisseur in Auckland said that he would assume all the old masters to be copies until they were proved to lie genuine. Personally, he said, lie lias always thought the picture attributed to Hals to be a copy and he would be surprised if it were genuine. It would be a costly business to prove that the picture is a genuine Hals. It would have to be sent Home to experts and would need to undergo several processes, including X-ray and minute examination of the pig*, ments and canvas. This examination is being done in England and on the Continent at the present time, and some extraordinary discoveries have been made.

Frans Hals, to whom tile picture is attributed, was a famous Dutch painter who lived from 1580 to 1666. Little is known of his birth or early training, but in later years he settled at Haarlem, where-some of his finest pictures are to he seen today. Hals had an extraordinary gift for seizing and expressing a fleeting human emotion. This is nowhere better shown than in “The Laughing Cavalier,” now ill the Wallace collection in London. In 17SG one of Hal’s portraits changed hands in Berlin for ss. Today it would realise thousands.

The picture under discussion is hanging high on the right wall at (lie entrance into the first room ol’ the Art Gallery. “Personally,” said Mr. A. J. C. Fisher, director of the Elam Sehooi of Art, “I am doubtful about the whole of the Grey collection.

“I think it should be taken down and every picture considered seriously before being put up again. It is a serious matter having pictures of doubtful origin hung with the names of the great masters attached to them.”