Il banchetto degli ufficiali della milizia di San Giorgio nel 1616

When Frans Hals took this on in 1616 he was in his thirties and not yet a name. The St George civic guard of Haarlem, a militia of men from the town's leading families, had finished a three-year term, and by custom the town marked it with a banquet and a group portrait to hang in their hall. The hard part of such a commission was that every man had paid to be seen and expected equal prominence, which usually produced a stiff row of faces. Hals instead caught them mid-meal, turning, talking, one lifting a glass, each a clear likeness yet part of one lively gathering. It worked. The sitters brought him more commissions, and Haarlem asked him to paint the same company again twice in later years.