Dame Joanna Lumley Makes Rijksmuseum's Frans Hals Exhibition 'Absolutely Fabulous'

In Frans Hals, Strokes of Genius, Joanna Lumley takes the visitor to 17th-century Haarlem, where Frans Hals was the go-to painter for a good portrait. Whether it concerns a stately regent, a couple in love, a musician, a fish seller or a laughing child, with his innovative painting style Hals gave his subjects unprecedented mobility and liveliness. When listening to his life story in Frans Hals: Strokes of Genius, Joanna Lumley brings these people to life even more. You will also learn more about Frans Hals himself and explore why his painting style was so revolutionary. Moreover, for the first time ever it will be possible to zoom in on his paintings down to the smallest detail.

Frans Hals (1582/84-1666) was born in Antwerp as the son of a weaver. The family fled from the Spanish and ended up in Haarlem. There he developed into a world-famous painter who is still admired for his idiosyncratic painting style that was so progressive that more than two hundred years later he inspired painters such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

This spring, a selection of around fifty of his best works from (inter)national top collections will be on display in the Rijksmuseum, following the venue at the National Gallery London. Works exclusive to the Rijksmuseum exhibition include two paintings loaned by Haarlem’s Frans Hals Museum – The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company, 1616, which has never previously been loaned out, and The Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse, c. 1664 – as well as the c. 1630 work Fisher Boy from a private collection and Laughing Boy (c. 1625) from the Mauritshuis, The Hague. 

The Rijksmuseum exhibition provides a landmark moment as Frans Hals’s most celebrated painting, The Laughing Cavalier (1624), returns to the Netherlands for the first time in more than 150 years. It will travel from the Wallace Collection, London, where it has hung since 1870. The portrait’s temporary return to the Netherlands follows the London museum’s historic decision in 2019 to loan out artworks for the first time.

The Frans Hals exhibition can be seen daily from 16 February to 9 June 2024 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Philips Wing of the Rijksmuseum. There is no surcharge. To visit the exhibition, a separate time slot must be booked on the museum's website. Friends of the Rijksmuseum always have free admission and do not need to reserve a starting time.

Main Image :Joanna Lumley, c Rijksmuseum