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Year 1666 (MDCLXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar. This year is often called Annus Mirabilis and is mentioned in the poem of the same name.

Events[link]

January–June[link]

• January 17 – Chair of St. Peter (Cathedra Petri) set above the Altar in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.[1]
• June 11–June 14 – Second Anglo-Dutch War – Four Days Battle: The Dutch fleet defeats England.

July–December[link]

• July – The city of Piteå in Sweden is completely burned by a large fire
• July 25 (julian calendar)/August 4 (gregorian calendar) – Second Anglo-Dutch War: English fleet defeats the Dutch under Michiel de Ruyter at St. James's Day Battle.
• August 9 – Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships in the Vlie estuary, and pillaging the town of West-Terschelling, an act later referred to as Holmes's Bonfire.
• September 2 – Great Fire of London: A large fire breaks out in London in the house of Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. The fire burns for 3 days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 6 people are known to have died.
• September 5 – The Great Fire of London ends.
• September 6 – Cestui que Vie Act 1666 passed in Parliament
• September 16 – Apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi
• December 22 – The Académie des sciences (French Academy of Sciences) is founded by Louis XIV.

Date unknown[link]

• Expulsion of the Portuguese from the Bengal port city of Chittagong by Mughal forces of Emperor Aurangzeb under General Bujurg Umed Khan and renaming the city as Islamabad.
• Sir Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into its component colors, which helps us understand the nature of light more comprehensively (see optical spectrum). He made a huge number of discoveries and inventions during this year, leading it to be referred to as his Annus Mirabilis.
• Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer paints The Art of Painting, his largest and most complex work.
• Lund University is founded in Lund, Sweden.
• Moulay al-Rashid conquers Fes, marking the beginning of Morocco's still-reigning Alaouite Dynasty.
• Jean Talon completes a census of New France, the first census in North America.
• The Russian Orthodox Church holds a sobor (church council) which deposes Patriarch Nikon, but accepts his liturgical reforms. Dissenters from his reforms, known as Old Believers, continue to this day.
• The year is also known for having all the Roman numerals, used only once, in order from biggest to smallest value (MDCLXVI = 1666).

Births[link]

• February 1 – Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, Princess of Conti and titular queen of Poland (d.1732)
• February 9 – George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, British soldier (d. 1737)
• March 15 – George Bähr, German architect (d. 1738)
• May 14 – Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia (d. 1732)
• July 10 – John Ernest Grabe, German-born Anglican theologian (d. 1711)
• August 13 – William Wotton, English scholar (d. 1727)
• September 6 – Tsar Ivan V of Russia (d. 1696)
• December 26 – Guru Gobind Singh, 10th Guru of Sikhism, Founder and Chief General of the Khalsa Army, social reformist, poet, and revolutionary (d. 1708)
• date unknown
  • Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall (d. 1706)
  • Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield (d. 1732)

Deaths[link]

• January 20 – Anne of Austria, queen of Louis XIII of France and regent (b. 1601)
• January 22 – Shah Jahan, Mughal Emperor of India (b. 1592)
• January 24 – Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer (b. 1588)
• February 24 – Nicholas Lanier, English composer (b. 1588)
• June 14 – Tierck Hiddes de Vries, Frisian naval hero and commander (b. 1622)
• June 16 – Sir Richard Fanshawe, British diplomat and translator (b. 1608)
• June 30 – Alexander Brome, English poet (b. 1620)
• July 5 – Albert VI of Bavaria (b. 1584)
• August 15 – Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German Jesuit missionary (b. 1591)
• August 26 – Frans Hals, Dutch painter (b. 1580)
• October 29 – Edmund Calamy the Elder, English Presbyterian leader (b. 1600)
• October 29 – James Shirley, English dramatist (b. 1596)
• December 9 – Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino), Italian painter (b. 1591)
• date unknown
  • Philip Fruytiers, Flemish painter (b. 1627)
  • James Howell, British writer (b. c. 1594)
  • Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (b. 1587)

References[link]

Samuel Pepys
Portrait of Samuel Pepys by J. Hayls. Oil on canvas, 1666, 756 mm × 629 mm National Portrait Gallery, London.
Born	(1633-02-23)23 February 1633 London, England
Died	26 May 1703(1703-05-26) (aged 70) Clapham, England
Resting place	St Olave's, London, England
Education	Huntingdon Grammar School, St Paul's School and Cambridge University
Occupation	Naval Administrator started off as Clerk of the Acts working his way up to Chief Secretary to the Admiralty and Tory Member of Parliament for Castle Rising and Harwich
Known for	Diary
Political party	Tory
Board member of	President of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity House, Freeman of the City of London, Freeman of Portsmouth, Treasurer of the Tangier Committee
Religion	Anglican
Spouse	Elisabeth Pepys (née de St Michel)
Relatives	Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich Talbot Pepys MP for Cambridge Sir Richard Pepys, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland Richard Edgcumbe, 1st Baron Edgcumbe among others – Cousins of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, ( /ˈpiːps/;^[1] 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II.

His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.^[2]

The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.

Early life[link]

Elisabeth Pepys in a stipple engraving by James Thomson, after a 1666 painting (now destroyed) by John Hayls.^[3]

Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, London^[4][5][6] on 23 February 1633, to John Pepys (1601–1680), a tailor, and Margaret Pepys (née Kite; d. 1667), daughter of a Whitechapel butcher.^[5] His great uncle Talbot Pepys was recorder and briefly MP for Cambridge in 1625. His father's first cousin, Sir Richard Pepys, was elected MP for Sudbury in 1640, and appointed Baron of the Exchequer on 30 May 1654, and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, on 25 September 1655.

Samuel Pepys was the fifth in a line of eleven children, but child mortality was high and he was soon the oldest survivor.^[7] He was baptised at St Bride's Church on 3 March.^[5] Pepys did not spend all of his infancy in London, and for a while was sent to live with a nurse, Goody Lawrence, at Kingsland, north of the city.^[5] In about 1644 Pepys attended Huntingdon Grammar School, before being educated at St Paul's School, London, c. 1646–1650.^[5] He attended the execution of Charles I, in 1649.^[5]

In 1650, he went to Cambridge University, having received two exhibitions from St Paul's School (perhaps owing to the influence of Sir George Downing, who was chairman of the judges and for whom he later worked at the exchequer)^[8] and a grant from the Mercers Company.^{[citation needed]} In October he was admitted as a sizar to Magdalene College; he moved there in March 1651 and took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1654.^[5][9] Later that year, or in early 1655, he entered the household of another of his father's cousins, Sir Edward Montagu, who would later be made 1st Earl of Sandwich. He also married the fourteen-year-old Elisabeth de St Michel, a descendant of French Huguenot immigrants, first in a religious ceremony, on 10 October 1655, and later in a civil ceremony, on 1 December 1655, at St Margaret's, Westminster.^[10]

Illness[link]

From a young age, Pepys suffered from bladder stones in his urinary tract – a condition from which his mother and brother John also later suffered.^[11] He was almost never without pain, as well as other symptoms, including "blood in the urine" (hematuria). By the time of his marriage, the condition was very severe.

In 1657, Pepys made the decision to undergo surgery: this cannot have been an easy option, as the operation was known to be especially painful and hazardous. Nevertheless, Pepys consulted Thomas Hollier, a surgeon; and, on 26 March 1658, the operation took place in a bedroom at the house of Pepys's cousin, Jane Turner.^[12] Pepys' stone was successfully removed^[13] and he resolved to hold a celebration on every anniversary of the operation, which he did for several years.^[14] However, there were long-term effects from the operation: the incision on his bladder broke open again late in his life, and the procedure may have left him sterile – though there is no direct evidence for this, as he was childless before the operation.^[15]

In mid-1658 Pepys moved to Axe Yard, near where the modern Downing Street is located. He worked as a teller in the exchequer under George Downing.^[5]

The diary[link]

A facsimile of part of the first entry in the diary

Samuel Pepys' bookplate. The motto reads "Mens cujusque is est Quisque" – "Mind Makes the Man"^[16]

On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary. He recorded his daily life for almost ten years. The women he pursued, his friends and his dealings are all laid out. His diary reveals his jealousies, insecurities, trivial concerns, and his fractious relationship with his wife. It is an important account of London in the 1660s. The juxtaposition of his commentary on politics and national events, alongside the very personal, can be seen from the beginning. His opening paragraphs, written in January 1660, begin:

Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks,^[17] gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.

The condition of the State was thus. Viz. the Rump, after being disturbed by my Lord Lambert, was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the army all forced to yield. Lawson lie[s] still in the River and Monke is with his army in Scotland. Only my Lord Lambert is not yet come in to the Parliament; nor is it expected that he will, without being forced to it.

– Diary of Samuel Pepys, January 1660.

The entries from the first few months are filled with news of General George Monck's march on London. In April and May of that year – at this time, he was encountering problems with his wife – he accompanied Montagu's fleet to the Netherlands to bring Charles II back from exile. Montagu was made Earl of Sandwich on 18 June, and the position of Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board was secured by Pepys on 13 July.^[5] As secretary to the board, Pepys was entitled to a £350 annual salary plus the various gratuities and benefits – including bribes – that came with the job: he rejected an offer of £1000 for the position from a rival, and moved to official accommodation in Seething Lane in the City of London soon afterwards.

Public life[link]

A short letter from Samuel Pepys to John Evelyn at the latter's home in Deptford, written by Pepys on 16 October 1665 and referring to 'prisoners' and 'sick men' during the Second Dutch War

On the Navy Board, Pepys proved to be a more able and efficient worker than colleagues in higher positions: a fact that often annoyed Pepys, and provoked much harsh criticism in his diary. Among his colleagues were Admiral Sir William Penn, Sir George Carteret, Sir John Mennes and Sir William Batten.^[5]

Learning arithmetic from a private tutor, and using models of ships to make up for his lack of first-hand nautical experience, Pepys came to play a significant role in the board's activities. In September 1660 he was made a Justice of the Peace, and on 15 February 1662 Pepys was admitted as a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and on 30 April he received the freedom of Portsmouth. Through Sandwich, he was involved in the administration of the short-lived English colony at Tangier. He joined the Tangier committee in August 1662 when the colony was first founded, and became its treasurer in 1665. In 1663 he independently negotiated a £3000 contract for Norwegian masts, demonstrating the freedom of action that his superior abilities allowed. He was appointed to a commission of the royal fishery on 8 April 1664.

His job required that he meet with many people to dispense moneys and make contracts. He often laments over how he "lost his labour" having gone to some appointment at a coffee house or tavern, there to discover that the person he was seeking was not within. This was a constant frustration to Pepys.

Major events[link]

As well as providing a first-hand account of the Restoration, Pepys's diary is notable for its detailed accounts of several other major events of the 1660s, along with the lesser known Diary of John Evelyn. In particular it is an invaluable source for the study of the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–7, of the Great Plague of 1665, and of the Great Fire of London in 1666. In relation to the Plague and Fire, C.S. Knighton has written: 'From its reporting of these two disasters to the metropolis in which he thrived, Pepys's diary has become a national monument.'^[18] Again writing about these events, Robert Latham – the editor of the definitive edition of the diary – has remarked: 'His descriptions of both – agonisingly vivid – achieve their effect by being something more than superlative reporting; they are written with compassion. As always with Pepys it is people, not literary effects, that matter.'^[19]

Second Anglo-Dutch War[link]

Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667 by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, painted c. 1667. The captured ship Royal Charles is right of centre.

In early 1665 the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War placed great pressure on Pepys. With his colleagues being either engaged elsewhere or incompetent, Pepys had to conduct a great deal of business himself. He excelled under the pressure, which was extremely great given the complex and badly funded nature of the Royal Navy.^[5] At the outset he proposed a centralised approach to supplying the fleet. His idea was accepted, and he was made surveyor-general of victualling in October 1665. The position brought a further £300 a year.^[5]

About this Second Anglo-Dutch War Pepys wrote: ""In all things, in wisdom, courage, force and success, the Dutch have the best of us and do end the war with victory on their side"". And King Charles II said: ""Don't fight the Dutch, imitate them"".

In 1667, with the war lost, Pepys helped to discharge the navy.^[5] The Dutch, who had defeated England on open water, now began to threaten the mainland itself. In June 1667 they conducted their Raid on the Medway, broke the defensive chain at Gillingham, and towed away the Royal Charles, one of the Royal Navy's most important ships. As he had done during the Fire and the Plague, Pepys again removed his wife and his gold from London.^[5] While the Dutch raid was a major concern in itself, Pepys was personally placed under a different kind of pressure: the Navy Board, and his role as Clerk of the Acts, came under scrutiny from the public and from parliament. The war ended in August, and on 17 October the House of Commons created a committee of 'miscarriages'.^[5] On 20 October, a list of ships and commanders at the time of the division of the fleet in 1666 was demanded from Pepys.^[5] However, these demands were actually quite desirable for him: tactical and strategic mistakes were not the responsibility of the Navy Board. The Board did face some allegations regarding the Medway raid, but they were able to exploit the criticism already attracted by the commissioner of Chatham, Peter Pett, to deflect criticism from themselves.^[5] The committee accepted this tactic when they reported in February 1668. The Board was, however, criticised for its use of tickets to pay seamen. These tickets could only be exchanged for cash at the Navy's treasury in London.^[5] Pepys made a long speech at the bar of the Commons on 5 March 1668 defending this practice. It was, in the words of C.S. Knighton, a 'virtuoso performance'.^[5]

The commission was followed by an investigation led by a more powerful authority, the commissioners of accounts. They met at Brooke House, Holborn, and spent two years scrutinising how the war had been financed. In 1669 Pepys had to prepare detailed answers to the committee's eight 'Observations' on the Navy Board's conduct, and in 1670 he was forced to defend his own role. A seaman's ticket with Pepys's name on it was produced as incontrovertible evidence of his corrupt dealings, but thanks to the intervention of the king Pepys emerged from the sustained investigation relatively unscathed.^[5]

Great Plague[link]

Outbreaks of plague were not particularly unusual events in London: major epidemics had occurred in 1592, 1603, 1625, and 1636.^[20] Furthermore, Pepys was not among the group of people who were most at risk: he did not live in cramped housing, he did not routinely mix with the poor, and he was not required to keep his family in London in the event of a crisis.^[21] It was not until June that the unusual seriousness of the plague became apparent, and Pepys's activities in the first five months of the year were not significantly impacted by plague.^[22] Indeed, Claire Tomalin writes that 'the most notable fact about Pepys's plague year is that to him it was one of the happiest of his life.' In 1665 he toiled very hard at arduous work, but the outcome was that he quadrupled his fortune.^[21] On 31 December, in his annual summary, he wrote that 'I have never lived so merrily (besides that I never got so much) as I have done this plague time'.^[23] Nonetheless, it was not the case that Pepys was completely unconcerned by the plague. On 16 August he wrote that:

But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.

— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday, 16 August 1665.

He also chewed tobacco as a protection against infection, and worried that wig-makers might be using the hair of dead people as a raw material. Furthermore, it was Pepys who suggested that the Navy Office should evacuate to Greenwich, although he did offer to remain in town himself. He would later take great pride in his stoicism.^[24] Meanwhile, Elisabeth Pepys was sent to Woolwich.^[5] She did not return to Seething Lane until January 1666, and was shocked by the sight of St Olave's churchyard, where 300 people had been buried.^[25]

Great Fire of London[link]

Map of London after the Great Fire in 1666, showing Pepys's home

In the early hours of 2 September 1666, Pepys was woken by his servant who had spotted a fire in the Billingsgate area. He decided the fire was not particularly serious, and returned to bed. Shortly after waking, his servant returned, and reported that 300 houses had been destroyed and that London Bridge was threatened. Pepys went to the Tower to get a better view. Without returning home, he took a boat and observed the fire for over an hour. In his diary, Pepys recorded his observations as follows:

I down to the water-side, and there got a boat and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michell's house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way, and the fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the Steeleyard, while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that layoff; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell down. Having staid, and in an hour's time seen the fire: rage every way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the City; and every thing, after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs.————lives, and whereof my old school-fellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top, an there burned till it fell down

— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday, 2 September 1666.

Seeing that the wind was driving the fire westward, he ordered the boat to go to Whitehall, and became the first person to inform the king of the fire. The king told him to go to the Lord Mayor, Thomas Bloodworth and tell him to start pulling houses down. Pepys took a coach back as far as St Paul's Cathedral, before setting off on foot through the burning city. He found the Lord Mayor, who said: "Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it." At noon he returned home and 'had an extraordinary good dinner, and as merry, as at this time we could be', before returning to watch the fire in the city once more. Later, he returned to Whitehall, then met his wife in St. James's Park. In the evening they watched the fire from the safety of Bankside: Pepys writes that 'it made me weep to see it'. Returning home, Pepys met his clerk, Tom Hayter, who had lost everything. Hearing news that the fire was advancing, he started to pack up his possessions by moonlight.

The ruins of the old St Paul's Cathedral, by Thomas Wyck, as it looked roughly 7 years after the fire.

A cart arrived at 4am on 3 September, and Pepys spent much of the day arranging the removal of his possessions. Many of his valuables, including his diary, were sent to friend of the Navy Office at Bethnal Green.^[26] At night he 'fed upon the remains of yesterday's dinner, having no fire nor dishes, nor any opportunity of dressing any thing.' The next day, Pepys continued to arrange the removal of his possessions. By this point, he believed that Seething Lane was in grave danger, and suggested calling men from Deptford to help pull down houses and defend the king's property.^[26] He described the chaos in the city, and his curious attempt at saving his own goods:

Sir W. Pen and I to Tower-streete, and there met the fire burning three or four doors beyond Mr. Howell's, whose goods, poor man, his trayes, and dishes, shovells, &c., were flung all along Tower-street in the kennels, and people working therewith from one end to the other; the fire coming on in that narrow streete, on both sides, with infinite fury. Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W. Pen and I did dig another, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things.

— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday, 4 September 1666.

On Wednesday, 5 September, Pepys – who had taken to sleeping on his office floor – was woken by his wife at 2am. She told him that the fire had almost reached All Hallows-by-the-Tower, and that it was at the foot of Seething Lane. He decided to send her and his gold – about £2350 – to Woolwich. In the following days Pepys witnessed looting, disorder and disruption. On 7 September he went to Paul's Wharf and saw the ruins of St Paul's cathedral, of his old school, of his father's house, and of the house in which he had had his stone removed.^[27] Despite all this destruction, Pepys's house, office and diary had been saved.

Personal life[link]

St Olave's church, the Seething Lane entrance

The diary gives a detailed account of Pepys's personal life. He liked wine and plays, and the company of other people. He also spent a great deal of time evaluating his fortune and his place in the world. He was always curious and often acted on that curiosity, as he acted upon almost all his impulses. Periodically he would resolve to devote more time to hard work instead of leisure. For example, in his entry for New Year's Eve, 1661, he writes: "I have newly taken a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine ...". The following months reveal his lapses to the reader; by 17 February, it is recorded, "Here I drank wine upon necessity, being ill for the want of it."

As well as being one of the most important civil servants of his age, Pepys was a widely cultivated man, taking an interest in books, music, the theatre, and science. He was passionately interested in music; and he composed, sang, and played, for pleasure, and even arranged music lessons for his servants. He played the lute, viol, violin, flageolet, recorder and spinet to varying degrees of proficiency.^[5] He was also a keen singer, and performed at home, in coffee houses and even in Westminster Abbey.^[5] He and his wife took flageolet lessons from the master Thomas Greeting.^[28] He also taught his wife to sing, and paid for dancing lessons for her (although these stopped when he became jealous of the dancing master).

Sexual relations[link]

Propriety did not prevent him from engaging in a number of extramarital liaisons with various women: these were chronicled in his diary, often in some detail, and generally using a cocktail of languages (English, French, Spanish and Latin) when relating the intimate details. The most dramatic of these encounters was with Deborah Willet, a young woman engaged as a companion for Elisabeth Pepys. On 25 October 1668 Pepys was surprised by his wife whilst embracing Deb Willet: he writes that his wife "coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing the girl con my hand sub su coats; and endeed I was with my main in her cunny. I was at a wonderful loss upon it and the girl also...." Following this event, he was characteristically filled with remorse, but (equally characteristically) continued to pursue Willet after she had been dismissed from the Pepys household.^[29]

The text of the diary[link]

The diary was written in one of the many standard forms of shorthand used in Pepys's time, in this case called Tachygraphy and devised by Thomas Shelton. Though it is clear from its content that it was written as a purely personal record of his life and not for publication, there are indications Pepys actively took steps to preserve the bound manuscripts of his diary. Apart from writing it out in fair copy from rough notes, he also had the loose pages bound into six volumes, catalogued them in his library with all his other books, and is likely to have suspected that eventually someone would find them interesting.

After the diary[link]

Samuel Pepys painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1689

Throughout the period of the diary, Pepys's health suffered from the long hours he worked. Specifically, he believed that his eyesight had been affected by the work he had done.^[30] In his last entry, dated 31 May 1669, he reluctantly concluded that, for the sake of his eyes, he should completely stop writing and, from then on, only dictate to his clerks^[31] which meant he could no longer keep his diary.^[32] Pepys and his wife took a holiday to France and the Low Countries in June–October 1669; on their return, Elisabeth fell ill and died on 10 November 1669. Pepys erected a monument to her in the church of St Olave's, Hart Street, in London.

Member of Parliament and Secretary to the Admiralty[link]

In 1672 he became an Elder Brother of Trinity House and served in this capacity until 1689; he was Master of Trinity House in 1676–1677 and again in 1685–1686.^[33] In 1673 he was promoted to Secretary to the Admiralty Commission and elected Member of Parliament for Castle Rising in Norfolk.

In 1673 he was involved with the establishment of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital, which was to train 40 boys annually in navigation, for the benefit of the Royal Navy and the English merchant navy. In 1675 he was appointed a Governor of Christ's Hospital, and for many years he took a close interest in its affairs. Among his papers are two detailed memoranda on the administration of the school. In 1699 after the successful conclusion of a seven-year campaign to get the master of the Mathematical School replaced by a man who knew more about the sea, he was rewarded for his service as a Governor by being made a Freeman of the City of London.

At the beginning of 1679 Pepys was elected MP for Harwich in Charles II's third parliament which formed part of the Cavalier Parliament. He was elected along with Sir Anthony Deane, a Harwich alderman and leading naval architect, to whom Pepys had been patron since 1662. By May of that year, they were under attack from their political enemies. Pepys resigned as Secretary to the Admiralty, and they were imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of treasonable correspondence with France, specifically leaking naval intelligence. The charges are believed to have been fabricated under the direction of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.^[34] Pepys was accused, among other things, of being a papist. They were released in July, but proceedings against them were not dropped until June 1680.

Pepys painted by John Closterman in the 1690s. National Portrait Gallery, London

Though he had resigned from the Tangier committee in 1679, in 1683 he was sent to Tangier to assist Lord Dartmouth with the evacuation and abandonment of the English colony. After six months' service, he travelled back through Spain accompanied by the Naval engineer Edmund Dummer, returning to England after a particularly rough passage on 30 March 1684.^[35] In June 1684, once more in favour, he was appointed King's Secretary for the affairs of the Admiralty, a post that he retained after the death of Charles II (February 1685) and the accession of James II. The phantom Pepys Island, alleged to be near South Georgia, was named after him in 1684, having been first discovered during his tenure at the Admiralty.

From 1685 to 1688, he was active not only as Secretary for the Admiralty, but also as MP for Harwich. He had been elected MP for Sandwich, but was contested and immediately withdrew to Harwich. When James fled the country at the end of 1688, Pepys's career also came to an end. In January 1689, he was defeated in the parliamentary election at Harwich; in February, one week after the accession of William and Mary, he resigned his secretaryship.

Royal Society[link]

Isaac Newton's personal copy of the first edition of his Principia Mathematica, bearing Pepys's name

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665 and served as its President from 1 December 1684 to 30 November 1686. Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica was published during this period and its title-page bears Pepys' name. There is a probability problem, called the "Newton–Pepys problem", that arose out of correspondence between Newton and Pepys about whether one is more likely to roll at least one six with six dice or at least two sixes with twelve dice.^[36] It has been only recently noted that while the gambling advice Newton gave Pepys was correct, the logical argument Newton included with it was unsound.^[37]

Retirement[link]

From May to July 1689, and again in June 1690, he was imprisoned on suspicion of Jacobitism, but no charges were ever successfully brought against him. After his release, he retired from public life, aged 57. Ten years later, in 1701, he moved out of London, to a house at Clapham owned by his friend William Hewer, known as 'Will', who had begun his career working for Pepys in the admiralty.^[38] Clapham was then in the country though now very much part of Greater London, and Pepys lived there until his death, on 26 May 1703. He had no children and bequeathed his estate to his nephew, John Jackson.^[39] His former protege and friend Hewer acted as the executor of his estate.^[40]

Pepys Library[link]

The Pepys Building of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Pepys Library c1870

Pepys was a lifelong bibliophile and carefully nurtured his large collection of books, manuscripts, and prints. At his death, there were more than 3,000 volumes, including the diary, all carefully catalogued and indexed; they form one of the most important surviving 17th century private libraries. The most important items in the Library are the six original bound manuscripts of Pepys's diary but there are other remarkable holdings, including:^[41]

• Incunabula by William Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson
• Sixty medieval manuscripts
• The Pepys Manuscript: a late 15th-century English choirbook
• Naval records such as two of the 'Anthony Rolls', illustrating the Royal Navy's ships c. 1546, including the Mary Rose
• Sir Francis Drake's personal almanac
• Over 1,800 printed ballads: one of the finest collections in existence.^[42]

Pepys made detailed provisions in his will for the preservation of his book collection; and, when his nephew and heir, John Jackson, died, in 1723, it was transferred, intact, to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where it can be seen in the Pepys Building. The bequest included all the original book cases and his elaborate instructions that placement of the books "...be strictly reviewed and, where found requiring it, more nicely adjusted".

Publication history of the diary[link]

The six volumes of the diary manuscript

The Reverend John Smith was engaged to transcribe the diaries into plain English; and he laboured at this task for three years, from 1819 to 1822, unaware that a key to the shorthand system was stored in Pepys's library a few shelves above the diary volumes. Smith's transcription—which is also kept in the Pepys Library – was the basis for the first published edition of the diary, edited by Lord Braybrooke, released in two volumes in 1825.

A second transcription, done with the benefit of the key, but often less accurately, was completed in 1875 by Mynors Bright, and published in 1875–1879.^[43] This added about a third to the previously published text, but still left only about four-fifths of the diary in print.^[44] Henry B. Wheatley, drawing on both his predecessors, produced a new edition in 1893^[45]–1899, revised in 1926, with extensive notes and an index.

All of these editions omitted passages (chiefly about Pepys's sexual adventures) which the editors thought too obscene ever to be printed.

The complete and definitive edition, edited and transcribed by Robert Latham and William Matthews, was published by Bell & Hyman, London, and the University of California Press, Berkeley, in nine volumes, along with separate Companion and Index volumes, over the years 1970–1983. Various single-volume abridgements of this text are also available.

The Introduction in volume I provides a scholarly but readable account of "The Diarist", "The Diary" ("The Manuscript", "The Shorthand", and "The Text"), "History of Previous Editions", "The Diary as Literature", and "The Diary as History". The Companion provides a long series of detailed essays about Pepys and his world.

Biographical studies[link]

This pub in Mayfair was named after Pepys; it closed in 2008

Several detailed studies of Pepys' life are available. Arthur Bryant published his three-volume study in 1933–1938, long before the definitive edition of the diary, but, thanks to Bryant's lively style, it is still of interest. In 1974 Richard Ollard produced a new biography that drew on Latham's and Matthew's work on the text, and benefited from the author's deep knowledge of Restoration politics. The most recent general study is by Claire Tomalin, which won the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year award, the judges calling it a "rich, thoughtful and deeply satisfying" account that unearths "a wealth of material about the uncharted life of Samuel Pepys". On 1 January 2003 Phil Gyford started a weblog, pepysdiary.com, that serialised the diary one day each evening together with annotations from public and experts alike. In December 2003 the blog won the best specialist blog award in The Guardian's Best of British Blogs.^[46]

In 2003 a television film The Private Life of Samuel Pepys aired on BBC2.

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• John Evelyn – contemporary diarist
• Levett
• Rota Club

References[link]

Further reading[link]

The Diary.

• C. S. Knighton Pepys and the Navy (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2003).
• N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815 (London: 2004 / New York: 2005). Includes an extensive specialist annotated bibliography.
• James Long and Ben Long, The Plot Against Pepys (Woodstock, NY and New York: Overlook Press, 2007). ISBN 978-1-59020-069-8. A detailed account of the Popish Plot and Pepys' involvement in it, 1679–1680.

External links[link]

Find more about Samuel Pepys on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

Some of the older editions of the diary are available online:

• Works by Samuel Pepys at Project Gutenberg

There are also two encyclopedic sites about Pepys based on these free editions:

• Phil Gyford's Samuel Pepys' diary, which provides a daily entry from the diary, detailed background articles, plus annotations from readers, as well as a link to a daily twitter.
• Duncan Grey's pages on Pepys

And other Pepys sites:

• Pepys library online at Magdalene College, Cambridge, including an essay by Robert Latham
• Pepys Ballad Archive
• The Samuel Pepys Club
• Pepys, Visits

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2011)

Frans Hals
Copy of a self-portrait by Frans Hals.
Birth name	Frans Hals
Born	c. 1580 Antwerp
Died	26 August 1666 (aged 85–86) Haarlem
Nationality	Flemish - Dutch
Field	Painting
Works	Gipsy Girl, 1628-30 Laughing Cavalier

Frans Hals the Elder (c. 1580 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.

Biography[link]

Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp. Like many, Hals' family fled during the Fall of Antwerp (1584-1585) from the Spanish Netherlands to Haarlem, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Hals studied under another Flemish-émigré, Karel van Mander (1548–1606), whose Mannerist influence, however, is not noticeably visible in his work. At the age of 27, he became a member of the city's painter's corporation, the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke, and he started to earn money as an art restorer for the city council. He worked on their large art collection that Karel van Mander had described in his book The Painting-Book (Middle Dutch: Het Schilder-Boeck), published in 1604. The most notable of these were the works of Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Jan van Scorel and Jan Mostaert, that hung in de St. Jans kerk in Haarlem. The restoration work was paid for by the city of Haarlem, since all religious art was confiscated after the iconoclasm, but the entire collection of paintings was not formally possessed by the city council until 1625, after the city fathers had decided which paintings were suitable for the city hall. The remaining art that was considered too "Roman Catholic" was sold to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, a fellow guild member, on the grounds that he remove it from the city. It was under these circumstances that Hals began his career in portraiture, since the market for religious themes had disappeared.

The earliest known example of Hals' own art is the 1611, Jacobus Zaffius. His 'breakthrough' came in 1616, with the life-size group portrait, The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company. His most noted portrait today is the one he made in 1649 of René Descartes.

Statue of Frans Hals in Florapark, Haarlem

Historians have erroneously reported that he mistreated his first wife, Anneke Hermansz (Annetje Harmensdochter Abeel), based on records that a Frans Hals was charged with spousal abuse in Haarlem in 1616. However, as Seymour Slive has pointed out, the Frans Hals in question was not the artist, but another Haarlem resident of the same name. Indeed, at the time of these charges, the artist had no wife to mistreat as Anneke had died during labor earlier in 1616. Similarly, historical accounts of Hals' propensity for drink have been largely based on embellished anecdotes of his early biographers, namely Arnold Houbraken, with no direct evidence existing documenting such. In 1617, he married Lysbeth Reyniers, the young daughter of a fishmonger that he had taken in to look after his two children. They married in Spaarndam, a small village outside the banns of Haarlem, because she was already 8 months pregnant. Frans Hals was a devoted father and they went on to have eight children.^[1] Where Hals contemporaries such as Rembrandt moved their households according to the caprices of patrons, Hals remained in Haarlem and insisted that his customers came to him. According to the Haarlem archives, a militia piece that Hals started in Amsterdam was finished by another painter because Hals refused to paint in Amsterdam, insisting that the militiamen come to Haarlem to sit for their portraits.

Although Hals' work was in demand throughout his life, he lived so long that he eventually went out of style as a painter and experienced financial difficulties. In addition to his painting, he continued throughout his life to work as an restorer, art dealer, and art tax expert for the city councilors. His creditors took him to court several times, and to settle his debt with a baker in 1652 he sold his belongings. The inventory of the property seized mentions only three mattresses and bolsters, an armoire, a table and five pictures (these were by himself, his sons, van Mander, and Maarten van Heemskerck). Left destitute, the municipality gave him an annuity of 200 florins in 1664.

At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence, Hals appeared in the ranks of the schutterij, a military guild. This fact found in the Haarlem archives has led to speculation that Hals made a self portrait in his 1639 painting of the St. Joris company, though this has never been confirmed. It was not normal for mere members to be painted, that privilege was reserved only for the officers. It is possible that he received the privilege as thanks for painting that company 3 times. Hals was also a member of a local chamber of rhetoric, and in 1644 chairman of the Painters Corporation at Haarlem.

Frans Hals died in Haarlem in 1666 and was buried in the city's St. Bavo Church. His widow later died obscurely in a hospital after seeking outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor.

Artistic career[link]

Frans Hals, later finished by Pieter Codde. De Magere Compagnie. 1637. Oil on canvas, 209 x 429 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Hals is best known for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens, like Pieter van den Broecke and Isaac Massa, whom he painted three times. He also painted large group portraits, many of which showed civil guards. He was a Baroque painter who practiced an intimate realism with a radically free approach. His pictures illustrate the various strata of society; banquets or meetings of officers, sharpshooters, guildsmen, admirals, generals, burgomasters, merchants, lawyers, and clerks, itinerant players and singers, gentlefolk, fishwives and tavern heroes.

In group portraits, such as the Archers of St. Hadrian, Hals captures each character in a different manner. The faces are not idealized and are clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in a variety of poses and facial expressions.

He studied under the painter and historian Karel van Mander (Hals owned some paintings by van Mander that were amongst the items sold to pay his bakery debt in 1652).

Hals was fond of daylight and silvery sheen, while Rembrandt used golden glow effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys — Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. Hals seized, with rare intuition, a moment in the life of his subjects. What nature displayed in that moment he reproduced thoroughly in a delicate scale of color, and with mastery over every form of expression. He became so clever that exact tone, light and shade, and modeling were obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush. He became a popular portrait painter, and painted the wealthy of Haarlem on special occasions. He won many commissions for wedding portraits (the husband is traditionally situated on the left, and the wife situated on the right):

Gallery[link]

• 

  Portrait of Jacob Olycan (1596-1638), 1625, Mauritshuis.

• 

  Portrait of Aletta Hanemans (1606-1653), bride of Jacob Olycan, 1625, Mauritshuis.

• 

  Paulus Beresteyn, 1629, Louvre.

• 

  Catharina Both van der Eem, bride of Paulus Beresteyn, 1629, Louvre.

• 

  Joseph Coymans (1591-1660), the husband of Dorothea Berck, 1644, Wadsworth Atheneum.

• 

  Dorothea Berck (1593-1684), wife of Joseph Coymans, 1644, Private Collection.

• 

  Portrait of Stephan Geraedts, husband of Isabella Coymans, 1652,Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

• 

  Isabella Coymans, wife of Stephan Geraedts, 1652, Private Collection.

The only record of his work in the first decade of his independent activity is an engraving by Jan van de Velde copied from the lost portrait of The Minister Johannes Bogardus. Early works by Hals, such as Two Boys Playing and Singing and a Banquet of the Officers of the St Joris Doele or Arquebusiers of St George (1616), show him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. The flesh he painted is pastose and burnished, less clear than it subsequently became. Later, he became more effective, displayed more freedom of hand, and a greater command of effect.

Jester with a Lute, 1620–1625, canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

During this period he painted the full-length portrait of Madame van Beresteyn (Louvre), and a full-length portrait of Willem van Heythuysen leaning on a sword. Both these pictures are equalled by the other Banquet of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St George (with different portraits) and the Banquet of the Officers of the Cloveniers or Arquebusiers of St Andrew of 1627 and an Assembly of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St Andrew of 1633. A similar painting, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of Rembrandt masterpieces, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 representing the Regents of the Company of St Elizabeth, and in the portrait of Maria Voogt at Amsterdam.

From 1620 till 1640 he painted many double portraits of married couples, on separate panels, the man on the left panel, his wife at his right. Only once did Hals portray a couple, Isaac Massa and his wife on a single canvas: Double Portrait of a Couple, (c. 1623, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam).

His style changed throughout his life. Paintings of vivid color were gradually replaced by pieces where one color dominated; black. This was probably due to the sober dress of his Protestant sitters, more than any personal preference. One simple way to observe this change is to look at all of the portraits he painted through the years with his trademark-pose leaning over the back of a chair:

• 

  1626

• 

  1631

• 

  1633

• 

  1634

• 

  1635

• 

  1645

• 

  1645

• 

  1655

• 

  1665

Later in his life his brush strokes became looser, fine detail becoming less important than the overall impression. Where his earlier pieces radiated gaiety and liveliness, his later portraits emphasized the stature and dignity of the people portrayed. This austerity is displayed in Regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House and The Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis (c. 1664), which are masterpieces of color, though in substance all but monochromes. His restricted palette is particularly noticeable in his flesh tints, which from year to year became more grey, until finally the shadows were painted in almost absolute black, as in the Tymane Oosdorp.

As this tendency coincides with the period that he was less popular among the wealthy, some historians have suggested that a reason for his predilection for black and white pigment was the low price of these colors as compared with the costly lakes and carmines. Both conclusions are probably correct, however, because unlike his contemporaries, Hals did not travel to his sitters, but let them come to him. This was good for business because he was exceptionally quick and efficient in his own well-fitted studio, but it was bad for business when Haarlem fell on hard times.

As a portrait painter Hals had scarcely the psychological insight of a Rembrandt or Velázquez, though in a few works, like the Admiral de Ruyter, the Jacob Olycan, and the Albert van der Meer paintings, he reveals a searching analysis of character which has little in common with the instantaneous expression of his so-called character portraits. In these, he generally sets upon the canvas the fleeting aspect of the various stages of merriment, from the subtle, half ironic smile that quivers round the lips of the curiously misnamed Laughing Cavalier to the imbecile grin of the Malle Babbe. To this group of pictures belong Baron Gustav Rothschilds Jester, the Bohemienne and the Fisher Boy, whilst the Portrait of the Artist with his Second Wife, and the somewhat confused group of the Beresteyn Family at the Louvre show a similar tendency. Far less scattered in arrangement than this Beresteyn group, and in every respect one of the most masterly of Hals' achievements is the group called The Painter and his Family, which was almost unknown until it appeared at the winter exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1906.

Many of Hals' works have disappeared, but it is not known how many. According to the most authoritative present day catalogue, compiled by Seymour Slive in 1970-1974 (Slive's last great Hals exhibition catalogue followed in 1989), another 222 paintings can be ascribed to Hals. Another authority on Hals, Claus Grimm, believes this number to be lower (145) in his Frans Hals. Das Gesamtwerk (1989).

It is not known whether Hals ever painted landscapes, still lifes or narrative pieces, but it is unlikely. Many artists in the 17th century in Holland opted to specialise, and Hals also appears to have been a pure portrait specialist.

Painting technique[link]

Frans Hals. Gypsy Girl. 1628-30. Oil on wood, 58 x 52 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Hals was a master of a technique that utilized something previously seen as a flaw in painting, the visible brushstroke. The soft curling lines of Hals' brush are always clear upon the surface: "materially just lying there, flat, while conjuring substance and space in the eye."^[2]

Lively and exciting, the technique can appear "ostensibly slapdash"^[2] – people often think that Hals 'threw' his works 'in one toss' (aus einem Guss) onto the canvas. Research of a technical and scientific nature has clarified that this impression is not correct. True, the odd work was largely put down without underdrawings or underpainting ('alla prima'), but most of the works were created in successive layers, as was customary at that time. Sometimes a drawing was made with chalk or paint on top of a grey or pink undercoat, and was then more or less filled in, in stages. It does seem that Hals usually applied his underpainting very loosely: he was a virtuoso from the beginning. This applies, of course, particularly to his somewhat later, mature works. Hals displayed tremendous daring, great courage and virtuosity, and had a great capacity to pull back his hands from the canvas, or panel, at the moment of the most telling statement. He didn't 'paint them to death', as many of his contemporaries did, in their great accuracy and diligence whether requested by their clients or not.

"An unusual manner of painting, all his own, surpassing almost everyone," wrote his first biographer, Schrevelius, in the 17th century on Hals' painting methods. For that matter, schematic painting was not Hals' own idea (the approach already existed in 16th century Italy), and Hals was probably inspired by Flemish contemporaries, Rubens and Van Dyck, in his painting method.

As early as the 17th century, people were struck by the vitality of Frans Hals' portraits. For example, Haarlem resident Theodorus Schrevelius noted that Hals' works reflected 'such power and life' that the painter 'seems to challenge nature with his brush'. Centuries later Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: 'What a joy it is to see a Frans Hals, how different it is from the paintings – so many of them – where everything is carefully smoothed out in the same manner.' Hals chose not to give a smooth finish to his painting, as most of his contemporaries did, but mimicked the vitality of his subject by using smears, lines, spots, large patches of color and hardly any details.

It was not until the 19th century that his technique had followers, particularly among the Impressionists. Pieces such as The Regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House and the civic guard paintings demonstrate this technique to the fullest.

Influence[link]

Laughing Cavalier, 1624, canvas, relined, (H) 83cm x (W) 67cm, Wallace Collection, London.

Frans influenced his brother Dirck Hals (born at Haarlem, 1591–1656), who was also a painter.^[3] Additionally, five of his sons became painters:

• Harmen Hals (1611–1669)
• Frans Hals Junior (1618–1669)
• Jan Hals (1620–1654)
• Reynier Hals (1627–1672)
• Nicolaes Hals (1628–1686)

Though most of his sons became portrait painters, some of them took up still life painting or architectural studies and landscapes. Still lifes formerly attributed to his son Frans II have since been re-attributed to other painters, however.^[4][5] Frans Hals painted a young woman reaching into a basket in a still life market scene by Claes van Heussen.^[6]

Other contemporary painters who took inspiration from Frans Hals were:

• Jan Miense Molenaer (1609–1668)
• Judith Leyster (wife of Molenaer) (1609–1660), Haarlem
• Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), Haarlem
• Adriaen Brouwer (1605–1638), South Low Countries
• Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (1597–1662), Haarlem
• Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613–1670), Amsterdam

Hals had a large workshop in Haarlem and many students, though 19th century biographers questioned some of his pupils, since their painting styles were so dissimilar to Hals. In his De Groote Schouburgh (1718–21), Arnold Houbraken mentions Philips Wouwerman, Adriaen Brouwer, Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, Adriaen van Ostade and Dirck van Delen as students. Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne was also a student, according to his diary with notes left by his son Laurens Vincentsz van der Vinne. Roestraten was not only a student (in the Haarlem archives this is proven with a notarised document), but he also became a son-in-law of Hals when he married his daughter Adriaentje. The Haarlem portrait painter, Johannes Verspronck, one of about 10 competing portraitists in Haarlem at the time, possibly studied for some time with Hals.

In terms of style, the closest to Hals' work is the handful of paintings that are ascribed to Judith Leyster, which she often signed. She also 'qualifies' as a possible student, as does her husband, the painter Jan Miense Molenaer.

Two centuries after his death, Hals received a number of 'posthumous' students. Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Charles-François Daubigny, Max Liebermann, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Gustave Courbet, and in the Netherlands, Jacobus van Looy and Isaac Israëls are some of the Impressionists and realists who have delved deeply into the work of Hals by making study copies of his work and further building on his techniques and style. Many of them travelled to the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem (since 1913 on the Groot Heiligland, and before that in the Town Hall), where several of his most important works are kept.

Legacy[link]

Malle Babbe, c.1630. Oil on canvas, 75cm by 64cm. Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

Hals' reputation waned after his death and for two centuries he was held in such poor esteem that some of his paintings, which are now among the proudest possessions of public galleries, were sold at auction for a few pounds or even shillings. The portrait of Johannes Acronius realized five shillings at the Enschede sale in 1786. The portrait of the man with the sword at the Liechtenstein gallery sold in 1800 for 4, 5s.

Starting at the middle of the 1860s his prestige rose again thanks to the efforts of critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger.^[7] With his rehabilitation in public esteem came the enormous rise in values, and, at the Secretan sale in 1889, the portrait of Pieter van de Broecke Danvers was bid up to 4,420, while in 1908 the National Gallery paid 25,000 for the large group from the collection of Lord Talbot de Malahide.

Hals' work remains popular today, particularly with young painters who can find many lessons about practical technique from his unconcealed brushstrokes.^[2] Hals' works have found their way to countless other cities all over the world and into museum collections. From the late 19th century, they were collected everywhere — from Antwerp to Toronto, and from London to New York. Many of his paintings were then sold to American collectors.

A primary collection of his work is displayed in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.

Hals was pictured on the Dutch 10-guilder banknote.

• 

  Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard, 1627

• 

  Catharina Hooft with her Nurse, c. 1619-1620

• 

  Family Portrait in a Landscape, c. 1620

• 

  Three Children with a Goat Cart, c. 1620

• Hals Frans Portrait Of A Man.jpg

  Portrait Of A Man, 1630

• 

  Jacobus Zaffius, 1611

• Jonker Ramp and his Sweetheart WGA.jpg

  Jonker Ramp and his Sweetheart, 1623

• 

  Married Couple in a Garden, 1622

• Peeckelhaering WGA.jpg

  Peeckelhaering, c. 1628-1630

• 

  The Mulatto, 1627

• 

  Portrait of a Man Holding a Skull, c.1615

• 

  Youth with a Skull, c. 1626-1628

• 

  Portrait of a Woman, 1644

• 

  The Jolly Drinker, c. 1628-1630

• Shrovetide Revellers WGA.jpg

  Shrovetide Revellers, c. 1615

• Singing Boy with a Flute WGA.jpg

  Singing Boy with a Flute

• 

  St. Matthew, c. 1625

• 

  The Rommel Pot Player, c.1618-1622

• Two Boys Singing WGA.jpg

  Two Boys Singing, c. 1625

• 

  Assembly of Officers and Subalterns of the Civic Guard / Archers of St. Adrian, 1633

• 

  Portrait of Isaak Abrahamsz. Massa, 1626

• 

  Daniel van Aken

• 

  Boy with a lute c. 1625 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• 

  Regents of the St Elizabeth Hospital of Haarlem, 1641

Dutch Biografisch Portaal 12491083

See also[link]

• Han van Meegeren

References[link]

• (Dutch) Frans Hals biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature

Sources[link]

• Seymour Slive: Frans Hals, 3 dln (oeuvre catalogue), New York / London 1970–1974, and Frans Hals (exhibition catalogue Washington/London/Haarlem, 1989.
• Claus Grimm published his Frans Hals. Das Gesamtwerk in 1989 (Stuttgart/Zürich; also translated into Dutch and English).
• N. Middelkoop and A. van Grevenstein, Frans Hals. Leven, werk, restauratie (Life, work and restorations) (Haarlem Amsterdam 1988). This work gives an account of restorations of the riflemen's pieces, but it also gives a picture of Hals' life and work.
• Antoon Erftemeijer; 2004 : Frans Hals in het Frans Hals Museum, Amsterdam/Gent (in Dutch, English and French), in which various chapters are devoted to Hals' life, his predecessors, portrait painting in the Golden Age, Hals' painting technique and other subjects. Many pictures with close-ups in this book show Hals' works in great detail.
• Christopher Atkins (2004) Frans Hals's Virtuoso Brushwork, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 2003, Zwolle, p. 281-309).

Parts of this article are excerpts of The Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, July 2005 by Antoon Erftemeijer, Frans Hals Museum curator.

External links[link]

• 150 paintings currently attributed to Frans Hals at Wikimedia Commons
• Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem
• Frans Hals Works, Biography and Style
• The National Gallery
• Web Gallery of Art (large collection of pictures and extensive biography)
• Frans Hals at zeno.org (German)
• Olga's Gallery
• Works and literature on Frans Hals
• Walter Liedtke,"Frans Hals: Style and Substance" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011)

Claude Perrault
Claude Perrault
Born	25 September 1613 Paris
Died	1688 Paris
Nationality	French
Work
Buildings	Perrault’s Colonnade, Palais du Louvre, Paris

Claude Perrault (25 September 1613 – 9 October 1688) is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre Palace in Paris (see Perrault’s Colonnade), but he also achieved success as a physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history.^[1]

Perrault was born and died in Paris. Aside from his influential architecture, he is best regarded for his translation of the ten books of Vitruvius, the only surviving Roman work on architecture, into French, done at the instigation of Colbert, and published, with Perrault's annotations, in 1673. His treatise on the five classical orders of architecture followed in 1683. As physician and physicist with a degree of doctor from the University of Paris, Perrault became one of the first members of the French Academy of Sciences when it was founded in 1666.

In the competition for the new range of building for the Louvre he was successful over all rivals, even Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had traveled from Italy expressly for the purpose. This work claimed his attention from 1665 to 1680, and established his reputation: Perrault’s Colonnade overlooking the Quai du Louvre became widely celebrated. The simple character of the ground floor basement sets off the paired Corinthian columns, modeled strictly according to Vitruvius, against a shadowed void, with pavilions at the ends. Little that could be called Baroque can be identified in its cool classicism that looks back to the 16th century. The façade, divided in five parts, is a typical solution of the French classicism.

Perrault also built an Observatory, the church of St-Benoît-le-Bétourné, designed a new church of Ste-Geneviève, and erected an altar in the Church of the Little Fathers, all in Paris. Perrault's design for a triumphal arch on Rue St-Antoine was preferred to competing designs of Charles Le Brun and Louis Le Vau, but was only partly executed in stone. When the arch was taken down in the 19th century, it was found that the ingenious master had devised a means of so interlocking the stones, without mortar, that it had become an inseparable mass.

In addition, he made a valuable contribution in the acoustics. His treatise on sound was a part of the book Oeuvres diverses de Physique et de Mecanique. In his later book, he treats such subjects as sound media, sources of sound and sound receivers. Regarding the musical acoustics, he noted the importance of vibration on consonance and dissonance. His study De la Musique des Anciens (Oevres diverses de Physique et de Mecanique) discussed how the combination of different notes make up harmony. It also contains critical examinations of old manuscripts on European music.

His brother, Charles Perrault, is remembered as the classic reteller of the old story of Cinderella among other fables.

References[link]

^[2]

Resources[link]

• Mémoires pour Servir à L’histoire Naturelle des Animaux, by Perrault, Claude (1613–1688) : Memoir's for a natural history of animals: containing the anatomical descriptions of several creatures dissected by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris.
• Introduction by Alberto Pérez-Gómez to Indra Kagis McEwen's translation of Perrault, Claude. Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns After the Method of the Ancients. Santa Monica, CA : Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1993.
•  "Claude Perrault". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Claude Perrault

See also[link]

• Perrault’s Colonnade

Robert Whitman.

Robert Whitman (born 1935 in New York City) is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making. Since the late 1960s he has worked with new technologies, and his most recent work incorporates cellphones.

Background[link]

Whitman studied literature at Rutgers University from 1953 to 1957 and art history at Columbia University in 1958. He is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York.