Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens like
Copy of a Self-portrait by Hals
Statue of Frans Hals in Florapark, Haarlem
Frans Hals, later finished by Pieter Codde. De Magere Compagnie. 1637. Oil on canvas, 209 x 429 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
The Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke was first a Christian, and later a city Guild for various trades falling under the patron saints Luke the Evangelist and Saint Eligius.
Maarten van Heemskerck painted this diptych before he left Haarlem for Italy in 1532.
Doorway to the original monastery of the Carmelites and the Vrouwebroerskerk. Called the Guldenbergspoortje or Golden mountain gate in the Grote Houtstraat.
Transcription of Salomon de Bray's proposed hierarchy of the guild in 1631.
The Governors of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1675. Salomon's son Jan de Bray painted himself second from the left.