Frans Hals Spotlighted in Elizabeth Taylor Estate, Toledo Museum

Unbeknownst to her, late actress Elizabeth Taylor owned an important old master. The same artist, Frans Hals, is also a recent acquisition for the Toledo Museum of Art.

Christie's, the auction house that is handling Taylor's estate, discovered that her painting, "Portrait of a Man, Half-Length," which was for decades thought to be by an imitator or student of Frans Hals, is in fact by the Dutch master. Sales from the film legend's estate begin in December.

A major work by Frans Hals has just traveled from England to enter the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art.

For decades, the Ohio museum had a top-notch example of the 17th-century artist's work on its "wish list" when just last year one of its curators spotted a Hals at a London gallery.

Larry Nichols, the William Hutton senior curator of European and American painting and sculpture before 1900, contacted the museum director and the wheels of the sale were set into motion.

The magnificent 60-inch by 64-inch canvas depicts a grinning cloth merchant and his contented wife surrounded by seven jovial children. The work once featured three more children and a goat, but was split by a previous owner.

"Family Portrait in a Landscape" will be unveiled at the museum on Oct. 13.