微笑む騎士

He is not actually laughing, and we do not know who he was. Frans Hals painted this young man of 26 in 1624, and the Victorian public gave him the name that made him one of the best-loved portraits in Britain.

The story behind the painting

An inscription at top right gives the sitter's age, 26, and the year, 1624, so he was born in 1597 or 1598. His name is unknown. Nineteenth-century titles suggest a soldier or a militia officer, but he was just as likely a wealthy civilian; the historian Pieter Biesboer suggests the cloth merchant Tieleman Roosterman, whom Hals also portrayed. The painting's history only goes back to a sale in The Hague in 1770. In 1865 the Marquess of Hertford bought it in Paris, outbidding Baron James de Rothschild.

What to look for

The man turns toward us from a low viewpoint, which shows off his embroidered sleeve and lace cuff. The costume is gorgeous silk, yet up close it is made of long, quick brushstrokes. The embroidery is full of emblems: bees, arrows, flaming horns of plenty, lovers' knots and tongues of fire for the pleasures and pains of love, an obelisk for strength, and Mercury's cap and staff for fortune. He is not laughing but wears an enigmatic smile, lifted by his upturned moustache. The canvas is about 83 by 67.3 cm.

Meaning and intent

Commissioned portraits rarely showed adults smiling before the late eighteenth century, but Hals was an exception; he often gave sitters broader smiles than this one, and informal poses that suggest movement. The eyes seem to follow you around the room, because the man looks straight at the painter's point of view. Art historian Seymour Slive called the work one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits. The smile is the secret: lively, confident, a little teasing, it makes a stranger feel like someone we know.

Legacy

Brought to London for the exhibition at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872 to 1875, which aimed to draw working-class visitors, the picture was a hit and raised Hals's reputation in England. By 1888 it had become the Laughing Cavalier, though a critic noted that the man smiles rather than laughs. It entered the Wallace Collection, and its first loan ever was to the Hals exhibitions of 2023 and 2024 in London and Amsterdam. It has inspired a novel by Emma Orczy and comic scenes about eyes that follow you.