Following exhibitions on Rembrandt and Vermeer, the Rijksmuseum presents a major retrospective on the third great Dutch painter of the seventeenth century: Frans Hals (1582/83–1666). A selection of around fifty key works has been made from Frans Hals’ extensive oeuvre. These include works from the Rijksmuseum’s own collection such as The Merry Drinker and Portrait of a Couple and a number of special loans.
These loans include The Laughing Cavalier from the Wallace Collection in London, a work that normally never travels, as well as Catharina Hooft with her Nurse and Malle Babbe (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), Family Group in a Landscape (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) and Fruit and Vegetable Seller (Private Collection Bridgenorth). The exhibition features another first: the group portrait The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard from 1616 (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem), will be shown outside the city of Haarlem for the first time ever.
