Il fumatore, o Tre teste

Tobacco was still a novelty in the Dutch Republic of the 1620s, half medicine and half vice, and painters loved showing people trying it. Here a boy grins around a long white clay pipe, another child hangs on his shoulder, and a woman with a tin tankard leans in behind. It is not a portrait of anyone in particular but a tronie, a study of lively faces and character types that artists made to show off their skill and to sell. Hals catches the whole thing at speed, with the loose, flicking brushwork that was his trademark. The panel is eight-sided, its original shape, as if we are glimpsing this tavern corner through a window.