Ritratto di una signora anziana

We no longer know her name, but Frans Hals left us two facts about her, painted right into the background at the left: her age, 60, and the year, 1633. Portraits like this usually came in pairs, a husband and wife facing each other, so somewhere there was probably a matching picture of her spouse, now lost or hanging elsewhere. She belongs to the comfortable Protestant class of Haarlem in the Dutch Republic's boom years, dressed in a black gown with a stiff white ruff and cap, a small gold-tooled prayer book in her hand. What sets Hals apart from tidier portraitists is the speed of the brush. Up close the ruff and cap dissolve into rough, visible strokes, yet step back and she is completely alive, half-smiling, her hand gripping the arm of the chair as if she is about to speak.