Regents of the Old Men's Alms House

The five regents who were part of the board of trustees of the Old Men’s Alms House in 1664 sit around a table covered with a dark red tablecloth. The housefather stands on the right in the background Hals’s less than precise manner of painting – characteristic of his later work – provoked great criticism in the nineteenth century. It was said that he was too old to paint. Frans Hals was over eighty when he made this portrait. The second regent from the right has an odd look in his eyes. In the nineteenth century it was thought that he had been portrayed drunk, but nowadays experts believe that he was suffering from facial paralysis.
It was long believed that Frans Hals had lived in the Old Men’s Alms House. It was said that this portrait of the regents and that of the regentesses were his way of taking his revenge on the strict trustees. But Frans Hals never lived in the Old Men’s Alms House. We do, however, know that in the 1630s Frans Hals and his large family lived in Groot Heiligland, the street where the Old Men’s Alms House stood.