O Banquete dos Oficiais da Guarda Cívica dos Arcabuzeiros

By 1627 the civic guards of Haarlem were less a fighting force than a social institution. The Dutch Republic was in a long war with Spain, but these companies mostly drilled, paraded, and dined. When a group of officers finished their three-year term of service, they marked it with a banquet, and they hired Frans Hals to record the evening. The men here are the Calivermen, named for the light musket called a caliver. Hals refused to line them up stiffly. He caught them mid-gesture, turning, talking, reaching for a glass, their sashes and starched ruffs catching the light. Group portraits like this one made his name in Haarlem, and it still hangs in the city, in the museum that bears his name.