The Rommel-Pot Player

Renowned chiefly for his insightful portraits, Frans Hals also painted lively scenes of revelers and peasants at the beginning of his career. Particularly popular was his image of a Shrovetide entertainer who stirs a rommel-pot to delight a crowd of children with its screeching noise. The composition was frequently copied—this version was once given to Hals himself and later assigned to Judith Leyster, who probably worked in Hals’s Haarlem workshop about 1630. However, the painting does not show Judith Leyster’s distinctive style and should instead be considered to be the work of an unknown close follower of Hals paraphrasing his virtuoso brushwork.