HALS, Dirck
(b. 1591, Haarlem, d. 1656, Haarlem)

A Banquet

1628
Oil on wood, 41 x 66
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This signed and dated painting is typical of Dirck Hals in execution, and may be described as a routine effort derived in good part from a much better work by the artist. Most figures seated at the table are adopted from the more multifigure Garden Party of 1627, but Hals gave the figures a different stage. Hals was exceptional among Haarlem and Amsterdam genre painters of his generation for the frequency with which he defined interior spaces with the help of tiled floors (which were almost unknown at this date in Dutch houses).




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