Les officiers de la compagnie de milice de Saint-Adrien en 1633

These men belonged to one of Haarlem's civic guard companies, militias that had once defended Dutch towns during the long revolt against Spain but by 1633 were mostly a social and ceremonial club for well-off citizens. Officers served a three-year term, chosen by the town council, and when a group's time was up they marked it with a portrait together. Hals had already painted this same company at a banquet six years earlier. This time he moved them outdoors into a courtyard, standing and seated with their sashes and weapons, the ensigns holding the flags of the blue and the white divisions. For the first time he also included the sergeants, set apart by the long halberds they carry. Portraits like this hung in the company's own hall, the doelen, where the officers who had paid for them gathered and saw themselves on the wall.