The Rommelpot Player is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1618-1620 and now in the Kimbell Art Museum. It is considered the best of several versions of a Rommelpot player by Frans Hals.
Fifteen versions of this painting were documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who wrote: "The Rommelpot- Player. In the centre is a man turned three-quarters left. He faces the spectator and laughs heartily. He is in dark clothes with a broad brimmed felt hat. His left forearm encircles the rommelpot (or bagpipes) ; in his right hand is a little stick with which he plays on it. Six laughing children surround him. The biggest boy, behind him to the right, claps his hands with delight. The other five children are to the left. Four of them are placed so that their heads make a diagonal line down to the left. The second boy from the top has a slouch hat. The fifth child, a girl, stands to the left behind this boy. In the background peasants look in at a door.
Variants of this composition exist. Thus, the girl on the extreme left looks at the spectator and not up at the player in the picture of the Paul Giersberg sale. Another time, the girl is replaced by a boy who looks up at the player in the picture of the Paul Mersch sale while the second child from the bottom, a little girl, who usually looks up at the player, is facing the spectator.
A recognised original of this composition cannot now be traced. There are a number of replicas which at best date from the time of Frans Hals, while some perhaps come from his studio. As the figures are of life size in several replicas, it is to be inferred that the original was also of life size.
The rommelpot-player alone as a half-length figures in a picture in the Hamburg Kunsthalle ; signed in Gothic letters, "Fhals"; panel, 10 inches by 9 inches; acquired with the Hudtwalker-Wesselhoeft collection, 1888; reproduced in Bode's work on the Wesselhoeft collection.
The chief replicas of the whole composition are :
Besides this one, the other known versions of this painting are
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