In the 15th episode of 'Frans Hals Paintings—The Podcast’, I discuss Frans Hals' 1624 portrait The Laughing Cavalier, which is in the collection of the Wallace Collection in London. Seymour Slive numbered the work number 30, in his 1974 catalogue, and Claus Grimm accepted it as number 18, in his catalogue of 1989. Wilhelm von Bode, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, and William Valentiner all accepted it, too. The work was not included in any of the twentieth century's Hals exhibitions of 1937, 1962, or 1989-1990. The portrait depicts a young man with a robust and confident demeanor—shown from the waist up, seated against a plain, dark background that accentuates his brightly lit figure. He wears an elaborately embellished doublet, whose embroidery is rendered in detail. This painting is heavily engrained in British cultural and has been, since it was won at auction, in 1865, by Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford.

Read a review of Frans Hals: The Male Portrait by Lelia Packer and Ashok Roy, published by Early Modern Low Countries in 2022.

Learn more about the painting at the Wallace Collection.

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