Portrait of a Gentleman in White

Dutch burghers of the period usually had themselves painted in black, and Haarlem, where Hals worked, was full of black suits. This man sat for him around 1637 in a high-waisted doublet of pale silk trimmed with ribbons of metallic mesh, one hand planted on his hip, the elbow pushed out at us. Dress was loosening at just that point, the stiff millstone ruff giving way to softer collars and French cut, and he wanted to be seen on the new side of the change. Nobody knows who he was. Hals painted him with the fast, open strokes he used his whole career, and the picture is in San Francisco now, in the Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection at the Legion of Honor.