Dirck Hals

The Hals family came to Haarlem as refugees. They had fled Antwerp in 1585, when that city fell to Spanish troops, and resettled in the Dutch Republic, where the eldest son, Frans Hals, would grow into the great portrait painter of his age.

Dirck, born in 1591, took a quieter path. He probably learned the basics from his famous brother, though he had little taste for portraits. Instead he painted what the Dutch called merry companies: small, lively scenes of fashionable young men and women eating, drinking, flirting and making music in bright rooms and gardens. He did not invent the genre, yet he gave it a fresh sense of space and a quick, flickering brush that caught the shimmer of the silk and satin worn by Haarlem's smart set.

A local poet, Samuel Ampzing, praised both brothers in his verses about the town, saying Frans painted his sitters so they seemed awake, while Dirck painted his figures cleanly. Dirck kept turning out these cheerful gatherings for decades, and many of them survive as small panels no bigger than a book.