Frans Hals the Elder (c. 1582 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. He is known for his loose painterly brushwork. The earliest known example of Hals's art is the portrait of Jacobus Zaffius (1611). His 'breakthrough' came with the life-sized group portrait ...