Portrait of a Young Woman is the most famous painting in our gallery and one of Frans Hals’ supreme achievements. His early style was flamboyant. But his later period (when he painted this) shows a more sensitive approach to characterisation.
Most of Hals’ later portraits show the older people of Haarlem, where he worked. So we're lucky to have this portrait depicting someone so young. Painted when Hals was in his 60s, it shows a calm and penetrating approach to capturing the sitter's character.
About Frans Hals
Frans Hals is one of the greatest portraitists of the Golden Age of Dutch painting. His use of fluid, flickering brush strokes to animate someone's features was revolutionary. Earlier styles of portraiture look stiff and flat by comparison. Hals' best-known work, The Laughing Cavalier, is a great example of this technique.
You can see the subtlety of Hals' style in the soft play of light over the young woman's features and the glint of a single pearl on her headdress. Look closely and you’ll see it dissolves into simple flicks of the brush.
The identity of the smiling sitter is unknown. Portraits of women were rarely commissioned alone. So it's likely that this one was made as a pair with the sitter’s husband. Although her clothes appear modest, the white linen, lace collar and glints of gold jewellery suggest wealth.
The portrait raises questions:
Was she the wife of a wealthy merchant?
Was this painting commissioned by the sitter’s husband to celebrate their marriage?
How much can we learn about her personality and mood from her expression? (Smiling was rare in portraiture of this period.)
What was her life like in seventeenth century Haarlem?
These are all questions we can ask when viewing this work, but we’ll most likely never know the answers.
