Boy with a Glass and a Lute
Boy with a Glass and a Lute is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1626 and now in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.
 Boy with a Glass and a Lute, c.1626. Oil on panel, 100 x 90 cm | |
| Artist | Frans Hals |
|---|---|
| Year | 1626 |
| Catalogue | Seymour Slive, Catalog 1974: #26 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 100 cm × 90 cm (39 in × 35 in) |
| Location | Guildhall Art Gallery, London |
Painting
The painting shows a boy with a lute who is holding a glass above his head with his right hand; with his left hand, he balances a lute which rests on a table.
Name
In his 1910 catalog of Frans Hals works Hofstede de Groot wrote: "82. THE LAUGHING MANDOLINE-PLAYER. M. 214. A young man with long dishevelled hair sits holding up in his right hand a glass full of wine, at which he looks with a smile. His dark costume is trimmed with blue ; his cap hangs on the back of his head, to the left. With his left hand he holds up one end of a mandoline, the other end of which rests on a table. Signed on the right with the monogram ; panel, 36 inches by 30 inches.
Exhibited at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1891, No. 72."[1]
Hals' positioning of a figure looking upwards was common to many of his genre paintings of the 1620s:
Yonker Ramp and his sweetheart
Boy Playing A Violin, today attributed to the "Master of the upward glance" or "School of Judith Leyster and Frans Hals"
This painting is probably related to The Fingernail Test:
