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Portrait of a Woman, probably Aeltje Dircksdr. Pater
Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1581–1666)
1638
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 82 x 67 x 6.5 cm (32 5/16 x 26 3/8 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 66.5 x 52.3 cm (26 3/16 x 20 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Portraits by Hals often feature bold, jagged brushstrokes. This portrait shows him experimenting with the “wet-into-wet,” technique, in which layers of paint were added in succession without being allowed to dry in between. Note the blended strokes used at the woman’s hairline to suggest individual strands of hair. The sitter has been tentatively identified as Aeltje Dircksdr. Pater (1597–1678), wife of the Haarlem brewer and burgomaster (mayor) Jan de Wael (1594–1663). An inscription states she was 41 when Hals painted her.
