Portrait d'une femme debout

This is Frans Hals near the very start of his long career, painted around 1611, before the Haarlem portraitist made his name with the loose, lively brushwork he became famous for. Here the handling is still careful and tight. The woman is unknown to us. She stands in a dark gown with a stiff white lace collar and cap, her hands folded over a gold chain, dressed with the sober correctness of a prosperous household in the young Dutch Republic. She was not painted to hang alone. This seems to have been a marriage portrait, one of a pair, its companion showing her husband. The two were parted long ago, and his half now hangs in Birmingham while she remains at Chatsworth.