Portrait of Samuel Ampzing

In this compelling, small-scale portrait, Frans Hals presents the Haarlem clergyman, poet, and historian Samuel Ampzing (1590–1632) holding his 1628 publication Description and Praise of the City of Haarlem in Holland. Ampzing inserts a finger between the book’s pages, as if interrupted from reading. Passages of fluid brushwork, such as those on Ampzing’s hand and nose, enhance the realism and immediacy of the portrait. Hals’s distinctive painting style earned him great renown, and many of Haarlem’s elite commissioned him to paint their portraits, most of which he executed life size.

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