HAARLEM.- From 19 July there will be no fewer than eight new works to be seen in the Frans Hals Museum, six on loan, one gift and one that has been purchased. The portrait of a woman by Frans Hals which the museum has been loaned is exceptional. For a long time the painting was overpainted. In 1974 the great Frans Hals expert Seymour Slive categorized it as ‘doubtful’. The work has since been restored and Hals’s painting technique has now been revealed again. It is the second portrait of a woman by Frans Hals in the museum’s collection, joining six of his portraits of men and the large group portraits of militiamen and regents. The museum has also been loaned two landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael, two paintings by Jan Steen and works by Richard Brakenburg and Jan van Goyen.

Jan Steen is known above all for his genre works. An early landscape by Jan Steen that is entirely in the tradition of Ruisdael is unique; the little figures in the foreground are all that bring Steen to mind. An Interior Scene by Steen is also on view. The influence of Adriaen van Ostade, in whose workshop the young Steen worked for a short time, is obvious.

In his turn, Jan Steen served as an example for Richard Brakenburg –the museum has a Company Making Music by him on loan – and also for Pieter van Roestraten, whose Sleeping Kitchen Maid the Frans Hals Museum recently purchased. The museum already owned The Licentious Kitchen Maid, another work by this son-in-law of Frans Hals. The similarity between the two kitchen maids in Van Roestraten’s paintings is remarkable. This purchase was made possible by the J-P. de Man gift.

The most recent loan is a Winter Landscape of 1655 by Jan van Goyen, a splendid supplement to the two summer landscapes already in the museum’s collection.