The painter Frans Hals (1583-1666) usually painted people.
Common people, but rich people as well because they could pay him well. This was necessary because he regularly ran into trouble with creditors. He needed quite a lot of money, if only because of his large household – he had 14 children.
He painted his last works when he was well over 80 years old; group pictures of the regents of the ‘Oudemannenhuis’ (Old men’s home).
The American writer Michael Kernan has written a beautiful book about the fictive discovery of the diaries of Frans Hals. The painter is portrayed as a jolly bon-vivant.