¹ The seller of the portrait in the 1851 auction is not identified in the catalogue, but is described as “a diligent art lover in Amsterdam

² According to Marieke de Winkel (2012), the two Hals portraits in this sale (“Twee stuks deftige Mans- en Vrouwenportretten; meesterlijk en breed van behandeling”) are likely the two portraits, thought to have been lost, mentioned by Jacob Scheltema in his dictionary of national biography, Staatkundig Nederland (1806) De Winkel suggests that the female portrait in the sale (73 x 54 cm) is the CMA portrait, despite the discrepancies in dimensions and medium (which de Winkel notes occurred frequently in the nineteenth century). The painting was bought in, and “Brondgeest” is written in the catalogue as the buyer. Johannes Brondgeest died in 1849, so the notation likely refers to his firm.

In her article, de Winkel lays out a possible early provenance for this painting. It is based largely on circumstantial evidence and conjecture, and thus is not included in CMA’s provenance until further research can provide confirmation: Scheltema writes in Staatkundig Nederland (1806): “The original portraits of [Jan de Wael] and his spouse, Aeltje Pater, done by Frans Hals…were still in Kampen in 1802.” De Winkel maintains that Scheltema would have seen these portraits in the Kampen home of Kornelis Johannes de Vriese [1729-1803] and his son, Cornelis Wilhelmus de Vriese [1768-1813]. Jan de Wael’s niece, Josina de Wael [1637-1677], was married to Abraham de Vriese, Kornelis’s father and Cornelis’s grandfather. De Winkel speculates that because Jan de Wael and Aeltje Pater did not have any children, their portraits would have been left to their nieces or their descendents – although it is unclear who, specifically, would have inherited the portraits. There is an inventory dated Jan. 10, 1679 (Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem) of the belongings left by Aeltje, but the paintings are not specified.

³ The catalogue of an exhibition of Old Master paintings from Viennese private collections held at the Österreichischen Museum in 1873 situates the painting in the collection of Anselm von Rothschild.

⁴ This painting was confiscated from the collection of Alphonse Rothschild in March of 1938 and was chosen by Hitler for the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Vorschlag zur Verteilung der in Wien beschlagnahmte Gemälde: Für das Kunstmuseum in Linz October 20, 1939. Linz Museum: Consolidated Interrogation Report (CIR) No. 4 (Attachments 56-82). Restitution Research Records. Records of the U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Record Group 260. National Archives Identifier 3725274. M1946, Roll 139, page 74. Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/image/#283755713, retrieved July 15, 2013): here the painting is titled “Damenbildnis” and was listed under inventory no. AR 705 (“AR 705” is inscribed in chalk on the painting’s stretcher and is still visible). The painting also appears on the “Verzeichnis der von den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen erbetenen Gemälde aus der Sammlung Alphons Rothschild ” (no. 7), an inventory found in Hitler’s library at Berchtesgaden. Listed above it is Hals's Portrait of Tieleman Roosterman (AR 866), also in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1999.173). According to Felicitas Kunth and Sophie Lillie, Portrait of a Woman was kept at the Tiroler Landesmuseum/Innsbruck Ferdinandeum during the war. It was then moved to the salt mine at Alt Aussee.

⁵ The Allies recovered the painting in the salt mines at Alt Aussee, which Alphonse’s widow, Clarice, visited to identify works from her family’s collection. The painting did not go through the Munich Central Collecting Point, but was returned to Clarice in 1947.