Frans Hals

Frans Hals (c. 1582-1666) was a Dutch Golden Age portrait painter. He was born in Antwerp, but his family fled to Haarlem, where he lived for the rest of his life. With his quick, loose brushwork he gave his sitters an unprecedented liveliness, from laughing drinkers to The Laughing Cavalier (1624). He painted large group portraits of the Haarlem civic guards and of the regents and regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse (1664). He died poor, but later inspired Manet and Van Gogh. The Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem keeps his main works.