They are captured singing and playing, in a fleeting moment of tenderness. Now a pair of unusually intimate portraits by 17^th century Dutch master Frans Hals are on public sale – if you have at least $5 million.

A Boy Playing the Violin and A Girl Singing, paintings thought to be of Hals’ children Hans and Sara, are currently on display at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam.

They are part of a sweeping collection of 16^th to 19^th century artists amassed by American collectors Jordan and Thomas A Saunders III, which will be auctioned in New York in May. The group includes 14 works by Dutch and Flemish artists, representing some 70% of the total $80 million value and including works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Davidsz. De Heem and Adriaen Coorte.

Tenderness

Calvine Harvey, a specialist in master paintings at Sotheby’s in New York, said that she was particularly drawn to the diamond-shaped Frans Hals works, which are being auctioned as a pair. “What I love about these Hals is that we think they are not just about sound but part of a series about the five senses,” she said. “His two children at the time are about this age, 9 or 10 years old, and we think they might have been used as the models…[for] not really portraits but genre painting.

“He is known for painting bawdy, jolly barmen and beer-swilling gentlemen, so being at home with his children as a father is kind of touching. Something sparked when I read the theory about them possibly being his children – there’s this tenderness to them that you don’t really expect. There is nothing goofy about them: they are charming in a really subtle way while still having his movement and brushwork.”

The paintings, which have recently been exhibited in London, the Rijksmuseum and in Berlin, are thought to have been made for a piece of furniture, have always belonged together and now have a price estimate of $5 to $7 million. They are on show in Amsterdam until March 14^th, when the entire collection will travel to Brussels, then LA, Hong Kong and back to New York.

At an invitation-only viewing on Tuesday night, Dutch collectors were also intrigued by Luis Meléndez’s $5 million Still life with Cauliflower, Basket of Fish, Eggs, and Leeks, and Kitchen Utensils – a painting of the rare vegetable grown in the Spanish royal family’s garden which would have been something of a product advertisement in the late 1760s, according to Harvey.

The largest work on display, and the most valuable at $8 to $12 million, was a Still Life of Roses, Tulips, Lilies, Poppies, a Sunflower, an Iris, Honeysuckle and Other Flowers in a Glass Vase with Two Birds, a Grasshopper and a Snail – a late work by Jan Davidsz. De Heem. The oil painting dates from around 1674, was made in Antwerp and to the art connoisseur is apparently laden with subtle political messages about that war-torn period.

The Saunders were keen art collectors and the collection is being auctioned by their heirs in late May.