The Regentesses of St Elisabeth's Hospital in Haarlem

In 1641 both boards that governed St Elisabeth's Hospital, a Haarlem charity, had their portraits painted. The men sat for Frans Hals. The four women who ran the house went to Johannes Verspronck, and it became his first large group portrait. He shows them at work around a table, with a ledger, a slate and chalk, an inkstand and pens. They kept the accounts, organised the housekeeping and supervised the female staff. Their black dresses and wide millstone ruffs were already going out of fashion by then. Through an open door behind them you can see into one of the hospital's wards, with a bed. The hospital stood on Groot Heiligland, across the street from today's Frans Hals Museum, where both group portraits now hang.