Portrait d'un homme la main sur le cœur

The upper corner of this canvas carries its own caption, painted in the year it was made: aged 26, 1632. In Haarlem that year Frans Hals was the portraitist the Dutch merchant class wanted, quick with a brush and quicker at catching a passing look. This young man sits in the sober black and stiff white collar of his day and lays his right hand flat against his heart. It was a familiar gesture in portraits meant as gifts to a bride-to-be, a painted promise of sincerity. Scholars still argue over how much of the handling here is Hals himself and how much came from his busy workshop. The faint half-smile, though, is exactly the kind of fleeting thing he was known for chasing.