The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a portrait by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals in the Wallace Collection in London. It was described by art historian Seymour Slive as "one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits".[1] The title is an invention of the Victorian public and press, dating from its exhibition in the opening display at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872–1875, just after its arrival in England, after which it was regularly reproduced as a print, and became one of the best known old master paintings in Britain.[2] The unknown subject is in fact not laughing, but can be said to have an enigmatic smile, much amplified by his upturned moustache.[3]
The portrait measures 83 × 67.3 cm (32.7 × 26.5 in) and is inscribed at top right Æ'TA SVÆ 26/Aº1624, which expands to aetatis suae 26, anno 1624 in Latin and means that the portrait was painted when the sitter was 26 and in the year 1624, and was therefore born in 1597 or 1598.[4] The identity of the man is unknown, and though the recorded 19th-century titles in Dutch, English and French mostly suggest a military man, or at least an officer in one of the part-time militia companies that were often the subjects of group portraits, including some by Hals and later Rembrandt's The Night Watch (1642), in fact he was as likely to be a wealthy civilian. Art historian Pieter Biesboer suggests the painting may depict Dutch cloth merchant Tieleman Roosterman (1598–1673), who is also the subject of another Hals portrait.[5]
The composition is lively and spontaneous, and despite the apparent labour involved in the gorgeous, and very expensive, silk costume, close inspection reveals long, quick brush strokes. The turning pose and low viewpoint are found in other portraits by Hals and here allow emphasis on the embroidered sleeve and lace cuff. There are many emblems in the embroidery: signifying "the pleasures and pains of love" are "bees, arrows, flaming cornucopiae, lovers' knots and tongues of fire", while an obelisk or pyramid signifies strength and Mercury's cap and caduceus fortune.[6]
In general, commissioned portraits such as this rarely showed adults smiling until the late 18th century, though smiling is often seen in tronies and figures in genre painting. But Hals is an exception to the general rule and often showed sitters with broader smiles than here, and in informal poses that bring an impression of movement and spontaneity to his work.[7]
The effect of the eyes appearing to follow the viewer from every angle is a result of the subject being depicted as looking directly forward, toward the artist's point of view, combined with being a static two dimensional representation of this from whichever angle the painting itself is viewed.[8]