Portrait of a man

Original: Oil on canvas 80,6 x 66 cm w x h

This beautifully painted portrait can be dated by the stylish costume. Duyst van Voorhout was a Haarlem brewer, one of the most lucrative professions of the time. He owned forty-seven paintings at the time of his death, but none of the portraits - as is customary in estate inventories - bear an artist's name.

The portrait must date from around 1636-38, judging by the style of the costume, especially the very wide lace collar that reaches over the shoulders.

One Nicolaes (Claes) Pietersz Duyst van Voorhout was in 1629, when he gave his age as twenty-nine, owner of a Haarlem brewery called Het Swaenshals. He was the son of the brewer Pieter Claesz Duyst van Voorhout and his wife, Maria Quirijnsdr Aecker. He was certainly a man in his mid to late thirties. An inventory of the estate of Nicolaes Duyst (or Duijst) van Voorhout, dated 7 November 1650, shows that he was an enthusiastic collector of paintings and that he owned one or two portraits of himself. The name of Hals is not mentioned in the inventory, but none of the nine portraits in the inventory is attributed to him.

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