Malle Babbe

Malle Babbe,c.1630. Oil on canvas, 75cm by 64cm. Gemäldegalerie

Malle Babbe is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted between 1633 and 1635 and now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The painting has also been titled as Hille Bobbe or the Witch of Haarlem. It is a tronie, or genre painting in a portrait format, not intended to be a portrait of a specific individual, though a model may have been used.

Painting

The painting measures 75 × 64 cm and shows the face of a smiling elderly woman, sitting at the corner of a table. With her right hand, the woman is gripping a metal beer mug with an opened lid. An owl sits on the woman’s left shoulder. The clothing of the woman is simple and corresponds with the mode around 1630. Her face is locked in an almost manic grimace. The very free handling of paint is typical of Hals' style, and not very different from that on his more formal commissioned portraits.

Name

By not properly reading an inscription, Malle Babbe van Haerlem … Fr[a]ns Hals,on the inside the of the picture frame, the painting was for a long time mislabeled as Hille Bobbe. Given the somewhat unconventional appearance of the subject along with the placement of the owl (a possible familiar), the painting was also known as The Witch of Haarlem. However the subject matter of Frans Hals in his other paintings would suggest that the painting is probably of a pub scene.

The Real Malle Babbe

Bronze Malle Babbe, by Kees Verkade in 1978, located on Barteljorisstraat, Haarlem

Research in the Netherlands municipality of Haarlem showed that a real Malle Babbe actually existed. She was included in a list of residents of a work house (Het Dolhuys), which served as a host for the mentally ill. Around 1642, Pieter Hals, a son of Frans Hals, was also in this work house. Hals and this Malle Babbe had probably already met by this time, as she was a known personality in Haarlem, although none other of her biographical details survive. It should be noted that in Dutch the adjective "Malle" signifies loony and that it is not uncommon to see painters and/or writers depict these types of village figures. In this depiction one can find a record of loony figures of society as belonging to the scenery of every day life, but may enjoy the reference to a thin line existing between sanity and lunacy-a dodgy relationship and position in society to which some writers and painters relate, probe, or of which they are simply aware.

Other paintings

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is in possession of a nearly identical painting. It is not clear who the creator of this painting is. In the past it was also attributed to Frans Hals, but it is now thought to be the work of one of his pupils.

Song

In the Netherlands, Malle Babbe is also the subject of a well-known eponymous song, written in by Boudewijn de Groot and Lennaert Nijgh and performed in 1973 by Rob de Nijs.