Portrait of Tieleman Roosterman (1634): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Tieleman Roosterman (1634) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1581–1666).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

An extremely wealthy linen and silk merchant in Haarlem, Tieleman Roosterman was 36 years old when Frans Hals painted his portrait. Unlike many Dutch painters of the period, Hals favored strong, visible brushstrokes that convey the vitality of his sitters. Roosterman strikes a confident pose, his costume sober but luxurious: his sleeves are decorated with braid and buttons, and ribbon rosettes encircle the waist of his doublet. The rich black of his suit is offset by the broad linen collar and lace-edged cuffs—fashionable details befitting a successful cloth merchant.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Tieleman Roosterman
• Date: 1634
• Creator attribution: Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1581–1666)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 139 x 109 x 5.5 cm (54 3/4 x 42 15/16 x 2 3/16 in.); Unframed: 117 x 87 cm (46 1/16 x 34 1/4 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Dutch
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1999.173

A detail from the museum

Roosterman may have ordered this portrait--and one of his wife--to commemorate their wedding in 1631.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Die vornehmsten Kunstdenkmäler in Wien. Wien: W. Braumüller, 1866.
• Bode, WIlhelm von. "Die Galerie Gsell in Wien." Zeitschrift für bildenden Künst 7 (1872), 181-186.
• Bode, Wilhelm von. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei. Braunschweig: F. Vieweg und Sohn, 1883.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.