FRANS HALS MUSEUM HOF

Founded in 1606, this former hospice for the elderly, built by Lieven de Key or Jacob van Campen, hosted the last hours of Frans Hals' life.

Restored by the municipality and transformed into a museum in 1913, it has the typical charm of the Haarlem hofjes: low houses for the residents surrounding a small, quiet courtyard, the main building with large ceremonial rooms overlooking the large courtyard. Small-paned windows provide a soft light that bathes the works of the Golden Age masters and recreates the atmosphere of religious mystery that is so characteristic of so many Dutch interior paintings. The museum has undergone a major renovation and is now located in two buildings: Hof and Hal located 7 minutes walk away.

But let's turn to the superb Frans Hals collection. Of the six corporate paintings by the Haarlem master, five are on display here (room 12) depicting companies on parade or banqueting around a table. These five canvases, painted between 1616 and 1639, allow us to appreciate the evolution that he imparted to this type of painting, which, from being static until then, was enlivened by a new expressiveness and vivacity. Of the group portraits, a genre in which Frans Hals was particularly distinguished, we can still admire, in rooms 15 and 18, The Regents of St. Elisabeth's Hospital, from 1641, and especially the Portrait of the Regents of the Old People's Home, from 1664. These works reveal a change in the painter's psychology. The bright and joyful colors are replaced by black, the joy and exuberance are replaced by austerity. The look he gives to his regents who, at the end of his life, refused him tobacco and wine, is without benevolence and tracks, through their emaciated bodies, the hypocrisy of a self-righteous society whose rigidity cannot mask its complacency (the dean's puffy cheeks). It is unfortunate that of the hundred or so individual portraits by Frans Hals, only three can be seen here (an archdeacon, one of his earliest works, a burgomaster and his wife). What is more, they are hardly representative of the brilliance with which he painted drinkers, bon vivants and other truculent characters to whom he was able to convey an irresistible joie de vivre. A museum not to be missed, the temporary exhibitions are also well worth the trip. The museum also highlights the city of Haarlem and its inhabitants.