Les Régents de l'hôpital Sainte-Élisabeth ou Groote Gasthuis de Haarlem

In 1641 the governors of Haarlem's hospital for the poor did something the city's charitable boards had not done before. They had themselves painted as a group. Amsterdam's regents had been sitting for portraits like this for years, while Haarlem's went unrecorded. Five men in plain black sit around a table, each appointed for a single year. The secretary Johan van Clarenbeeck holds the book, and the coins laid out in front of François Wouters identify him as the treasurer. A companion picture was commissioned at the same time from another Haarlem painter, Johannes Verspronck, showing the four women who governed the hospital's other board. Hals was about 59 and living a few streets from the hospital itself on the Groot Heiligland. The canvas is still in the frame that was made for it in 1641.