The Singing Lesson - Attributed to Dirck Hals (1591 - 1656)

Oil on parquet panel. Dutch school of the first half of the 17th century, attributed to Dirck Hals.
Installed on the terrace of a palace whose door can be seen with a pediment supported by atlatls, our joyful company is enjoying the pleasures of music. The lady holding a score in the center sings a song accompanied by a lute player. The man installed at her height seems to guide her, would he be her singing teacher? Two couples standing on the stage, enjoying this musical interlude. This sweet melody is accompanied by the lapping of a fountain whose water flows out of the mouth of a dolphin.
The joyfulness perceptible in the artist's eyes and palette show, thanks to a diaphanous atmosphere, the lightness of this musical moment. The richness of the costumes and fabrics is a pretext for a symphony of colors, a variation of orange-reds, ochres and whites. Indeed, the painter's concern is to carry us away during this intimate concert, towards the grace of the moment.
The younger brother of Frans Hals often painted genre scenes showing the festive activities of his fellow men, both in rich interiors and in more open spaces. Thus, our composition falls into the category of galant scenes or private open-air concerts, such as Company of Musicians on a Terrace (painted in 1625 and preserved in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem), The Country Feast (1627, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), or Merry Company (circa 1620 in the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt).

The painting is harmoniously underlined by a brown and gold guilloche frame.
Dimensions : 44 x 57 cm - 65 x 78 cm with the frame

Dirck Hals (Haarlem 1591 - Id. 1656) belonged to a family of Dutch painters. He studied with his brother Frans (eight years separate them) and perhaps with Willem Pietersz Buytewech (1591-92/1624). If he is, in his first sketches, indebted to his brother for his coloring and technique, he then follows in the tradition of W.P. Buytewech, Essaias Van de Velde and David Vinckboons.
As a painter of interiors, conversations and society, he ranks among the artists of the Golden Age in Holland, where genre painting was born. From then on, paintings represented familiar events, elegant conversations and concerts, and we thus move from the gallant salon to tavern brawls. A recognized artist especially in the years 1620-1630, Dirck Hals did not escape repetitive ideas in his later paintings and his production is somewhat uneven.