Portrait of a man

The attire worn by this gentleman identifies him as a fashionable patrician and allows us to date the portrait to the years 1627/30. The painting technique is clearly related to that of Frans Hals (1581/85-1666), but the attribution to Frans Hals, first doubted by W.R. Valentiner in his monograph on the artist published in 1923, has now been conclusively rejected.