Ritratto di un uomo in giacca grigio-giallastra

Hals painted this panel in 1633, in the middle of his busiest years in Haarlem. The sitter has never been identified. He is turned to the right in a floppy hat and a pale jacket, looking back out at us, and a companion panel of a man in black suggests the two were made as a pair for one particular room. The support is oak, about 25 centimetres high, which is small even for a cabinet portrait. A century later the picture was hanging in a castle in Bohemia. In 1741 the Elector of Saxony bought the Wallenstein collection at Dux and had it carted to Dresden, and the little Hals came with it, into a gallery that 13 years later would buy Raphael's Sistine Madonna.