The exhibition is generously made possible by Bernard and Louise Palitz.

Exhibition objects

Malle Babbe
Style of Frans Hals (Dutch, second quarter 17th century)
Accession Number: 71.76
The Smoker
Frans Hals (Dutch, Antwerp 1582/83–1666 Haarlem)
Date: ca. 1623–25
Accession Number: 89.15.34
Portrait of a Man
Frans Hals (Dutch, Antwerp 1582/83–1666 Haarlem)
Date: early 1650s
Accession Number: 91.26.9
Portrait of a Woman
Frans Hals (Dutch, Antwerp 1582/83–1666 Haarlem)
Date: ca. 1650, reworked probably 18th century
Accession Number: 91.26.10
Young Man and Woman in an Inn ("Yonker Ramp and His Sweetheart")
Frans Hals (Dutch, Antwerp 1582/83–1666 Haarlem)
Date: 1623
Accession Number: 14.40.602
Boy with a Lute
Frans Hals (Dutch, Antwerp 1582/83–1666 Haarlem)
Date: ca. 1625
Accession Number: 14.40.604

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Featured Media

Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum

In conjunction with the special exhibition Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum, on view July 26 through October 10, 2011, this Sunday at the Met program recorded on September 25, 2011, features two lectures exploring the famous Dutch painter's life, art, and brilliant brushwork.

First Walter Liedtke, Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents Frans Hals in Haarlem and New York, followed by "The Master's Touch": Frans Hals's Painterly Paintings, presented by Christopher D. M. Atkins, Assistant Professor of Art History, Queens College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York.

Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum

July 26–October 10, 2011

Accompanied by a publication and an Audio Guide

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the most important collection of paintings in America by the celebrated Dutch artist Frans Hals (1582/83–1666), whose portraits and genre scenes were famous in his lifetime for their immediacy and dazzling brushwork. This exhibition presents thirteen paintings by Hals, including two lent from private collections, and several works by other Netherlandish masters.

Several of the Museum's paintings by Hals are famous, especially the early Merrymakers at Shrovetide (ca. 1616) and the so-called Yonker Ramp and His Sweetheart (1623), both bequeathed to the Museum by Benjamin Altman in 1913. Also included in the exhibition are two loans from private collections in New York—the small, exquisite Portrait of Samuel Ampzing (1630), on copper, and the well-known Fisher Girl (1630–32). A selection of other Dutch paintings from the Museum's collection and a few engravings set Hals's work in the context of his native Haarlem and help clarify how exceptional his animated poses and virtuoso brushwork were at the time.

Read about Frans Hals on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.