Frans Hals was born in Antwerp in 1582 or 1583, the son of a clothworker from Mechelen. His family settled in Haarlem following the Spanish reconquest of Antwerp in 1585, and it was there that he spent almost his entire working life. His early training remains obscure. A later account identifies him as a pupilContinue reading “Frans Hals: Style, Reputation and Portraiture”
Tag Archives: Haarlem
Pieter Claesz (1597–1660): Early Still Lifes in Haarlem
Still life occupied an ambiguous position in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. It was admired for the extraordinary skill with which painters could reproduce the sheen of metal, the transparency of glass, the texture of fruit or bread and the fall of light across a table, yet in theoretical accounts it remained low in the hierarchy ofContinue reading “Pieter Claesz (1597–1660): Early Still Lifes in Haarlem”
