Eight rooms filled with sumptuous embroidery and fine-spun lace worn by sitters with laughing, gurning and awed faces: The Laughing Cavalier is but one of a cast of many
Comprehensive collection of the 17th-century painter’s work aims to place him alongside Rembrandt and Vermeer, but his technically brilliant paintings are weirdly soulless
Who was Frans Hals? We know very little about him. He was baptised in either 1582 or 1583 in Antwerp. He died in 1666 at the age of 83 or 84. Approximately 220 works survive. One discredited narrative claimed Hals was a drunk – an inference probably based on his subject matter. There are several