Frans Hals

Frans Hals
Copy of a Self-portrait by Hals
Bornc. 1582
Antwerp, Flanders, Spanish Netherlands
Died26 August 1666(1666-08-26) (aged 83–84)
Haarlem, Dutch Republic
NationalityDutch
Notable workThe Gypsy Girl (1628)
Laughing Cavalier (1624)
Laughing Boy (c. 1625)
Signature

Frans Hals the Elder (UK: /hæls/,[1] US: /hɑːls, hælz, hɑːlz/;[2][3][4] Dutch: [frɑns ˈɦɑls]; c. 1582 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate their homes with works of art. Hals was highly sought after by wealthy burgher commissioners of individual, married-couple, family, and institutional-group portraits. He also painted tronies for the general market.

There were two quite distinct schools of portraiture in 17th-century Haarlem: the neat (represented, for example, by Verspronck); and a looser, more painterly style at which Frans Hals excelled. Some of Hals's portrait work is characterised by a subdued palette, reflecting the politely serious tones of his fashionable clients' wardrobe. In contrast, the personalities he paints are full of life, typically with a friendly glint in the eye or the glimmer of a smile on the lips.

Hals was born at Antwerp in the Spanish-occupied southern Netherlands, but because of the chaos wrought there by the Spanish at that time, his family moved to Haarlem when he was little. Many of his Haarlem clients were also émigrés from the South.

  1. ^ "Hals, Frans". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022.
  2. ^ "Hals". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  3. ^ "Hals". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  4. ^ "Hals" Archived 12 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.