Stephanus Geeraerdts, Schöffe von Haarlem

Frans Hals was about 70 when he painted this Haarlem alderman, Stephanus Geraerdts, around 1650. Look at the man's odd, reaching pose and outstretched hand and it seems unresolved, because half the picture is missing. This was one of a pair. In its companion, painted to hang on the right, Geraerdts's wife Isabella Coymans leans toward him holding out a rose — and only the near edge of that rose creeps into his canvas, just above his fingers. Hals rarely showed a married couple so playfully caught mid-gesture. The two portraits were split up and sold separately in 1886, and hers has been in private hands in Paris ever since, so today the alderman reaches for a flower no visitor can see.