Jan Hals

Frans Hals, the great portrait painter of Haarlem, raised a large family, and at least five of his sons took up the brush. Jan was one of them, the son of Frans's second wife, Lysbeth Reyniersdr, born in Haarlem around 1620. He joined the city's guild of painters and worked very much in his father's manner, painting portraits of Haarlem's citizens and lively scenes of everyday life with the same quick, open brushwork.

That closeness has followed him ever since. Pictures by Jan were often sold under his father's name, and telling the son's hand from the father's is still work for specialists. When he signed, he used a monogram of two letters, I and H, the I standing for the J of Jan as it was commonly written then. He died in his thirties, by 1654 at the latest.