Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image


The Gypsy Girl (Hals)

The Gypsy Girl
The Gypsy Girl, c.1628 Oil on wood, 57.8 x 52.1 cm
ArtistFrans Hals
Year1628–1630
CatalogueSeymour Slive, Catalog 1974: #62
MediumOil on wood
Dimensions57.8 cm × 52.1 cm (22.8 in × 20.5 in)
LocationLouvre Museum, Paris
AccessionM.I. 926

The Gypsy Girl, also known as Gypsy Girl[1] or Young Woman (La Bohémienne)[2] (and sometimes erroneously referred to as Malle Babbe) is an oil-on-wood painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1628–1630, and now in the Louvre Museum, in Paris. It is a tronie, a study of facial expression and unusual costume, rather than a commissioned portrait.

The display of cleavage was not a common feature of costume seen in public in Hals' time and place. For this reason various art historians have assumed a painting of a prostitute was intended. From the 19th century the Louvre titled the painting La Bohémienne, meaning a female gypsy, but there is no reason to assume the model was Romani.

  1. ^ Steven Nadler (2022). The Portraitist: Frans Hals and His World. University of Chicago Press. p. 119-120. ISBN 9780226698366.
  2. ^ Cornelis, Bart (2023). Frans Hals (catalogue for 2024 London exhibition). London: National Gallery Global. p. 171. ISBN 9781857097122.

Previous Page Next Page