Malle Babbe

For a long time this laughing woman with a tankard and an owl was known by grim, invented titles, even The Witch of Haarlem, all from a misreading of the words scratched on the back of the frame. Those words actually say Malle Babbe of Haarlem, and research in the town turned up a real person behind them, a Barbara Claes whose nickname meant roughly Mad Barb. She ended her days in a Haarlem workhouse, the same institution where one of Hals's own sons was confined, which is very likely where the painter saw her. The owl on her shoulder is not a sign of witchcraft. It points to an old Dutch saying about being drunk as an owl, and the whole thing reads as a tavern moment caught mid-laugh. Hals paints it with slashing, visible strokes that look almost unfinished up close. Courbet admired it enough to copy it in 1869, while it was hanging in Munich.