And there they sit, Franz and Lysbeth, all in a garden green, under a shady oak tree, with a vision of architectural gardens and open fertile country beyond. The pose was most certainly her idea, not his, for she is smiling most good-humouredly at having gained her end! He would be up and off, but she checks his movement, and the hand-grasp upon his shoulder is a reminder of the sweet restraint of happy married life.
When this masterpiece was painted, the Hals were in comfortable circumstances. The success of the "Group of Shooters" had greatly enriched Franz, and his studio was thronged by opulent patrons, each clamouring for his portrait.
The third picture of note in 1624 was "[The Laughing Cavalier]." Why, and when, it gained its title nobody knows—in most catalogues it is correctly called "Portrait of an Officer," a member of one of the Shooting Guilds.
Whoever the gentleman may be, he had an uncommonly good conceit of himself. He is not laughing, but expressing disdain of the world in general, and amused contempt of you and me, who go to look at him, in particular. The characterisation is so cleverly managed that one almost fancies his expression changes; he appears to scowl and then to relax, just as in actual life our features involuntarily keep up an incessant play. His dress is unusually decorative, the colours are few but superlatively arranged, the whole effect is wonderfully lifelike. It was the happiest of happy thoughts which suggested the placing side by side, at the Wallace Collection, masterpieces of the three greatest portrait painters the world has seen—Velazquez, Rembrandt, and Hals. "The Laughing Cavalier" loses nothing by proximity to "The Lady with a Fan" and "The Unmerciful Servant."
But Hals had a mind to paint simpler subjects than these, and he turned to children once more, as exhibiting most naturally and spontaneously variety of character and expression. "Singing Boys," "Singing Girls," "Flute Players," "Mandolinists," and others, playing only pranks and tricks, he welcomed to his studio—another Leonardo da Vinci trait!
He noted their expanding cheeks, he heard their melodious notes, he understood the motions of their limbs, and fixed them all. They make us smile with pleasure, so natural and lifelike are they at Haarlem, Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, Cassel, and Königsberg—many of 1625, and more elsewhere undated, but similarly characterised.
Two or three "Zechbruders" or "Jolly Topers," and some gay young sparks with mandolines—"Schalks naar" or "Buffoon," as each is quite erroneously styled—walked out of Hals' studio in 1625. Doubtless they were skits or caricatures of fellow-artists, for the clever painters of Haarlem were not quite "Fools" or "Buffoons," nor were they all only "Jolly Topers."
All this time Hals was making arrangements with his old patrons of St. Joris' Guild for another great portrait-group to be put up in the Stadhuis. This was finished in 1627—it represents eleven Officers.