남자의 초상

In 1652 a Haarlem baker took Frans Hals to court over an unpaid bill for bread and meat. The bailiff's inventory of what was left in the painter's house lists three mattresses, a cupboard, a table and five pictures. He was about 70, his loose late manner was going out of fashion, and he painted this man a year or so afterwards.

Nobody knows who the sitter is. The Esterhazy princes, whose collection Hungary bought in 1871 and built this museum around, catalogued it as a self-portrait by Karel Dujardin. Later it was called a self-portrait by Hals. Then came the proposal that it shows the painter Jan Asselijn, known to colleagues as Crabbetje, little crab, for a deformed right hand, which would explain why the gloved hand here is tucked away and barely drawn. Recent scholars are not convinced. The panel is narrower than Hals made it, since about five centimetres were sawn off each side.