Retrato de uma mulher

Hals was around 75 when he painted this in Haarlem, near the end of a long life that was closing in hardship. Once a sought-after portraitist, he had fallen into debt, and in his final years the town council granted him a small yearly allowance to live on. None of that weariness shows in the brushwork. He lays the paint down fast and visibly, leaving strokes unblended, so that a white collar or a cuff reads up close as a few confident dabs. We do not know who she is. She likely had a companion piece, a portrait of her husband meant to hang beside her, now lost.