Uomo con boccale di birra

Frans Hals worked in Haarlem, a town that ran on beer, and this man raising a stone jug is one of the loose, lively drinkers he was known for. Instead of the still, careful pose of a commissioned portrait, Hals catches him mid-movement, the brushstrokes left rough and quick so the whole figure seems held in a passing moment. There is a clue on the jug itself. The little red deer painted on its front matches the sign of a Haarlem brewery, Het Rode Hert, the Red Deer, run by a brewer whose own portrait Hals would paint years later. So the cheerful man with the drink may well have earned his living making it.