  About the Artwork
  
  
  The postimpressionist painter Vincent van Gogh once observed, “Frans Hals must have had twenty-seven shades of black.” Hals’s celebrated facility with that color is on full offer in this half-length portrait, in which a bearded male figure wearing a fitted black jacket and matching skullcap turns alertly toward the viewer. The black of the clothing is far from uniform: a warm, plush shade of black evokes embroidered velvet, while a colder, bluer black stands in for shimmering satin. Against these dark tonalities, the small book in the sitter’s right hand stands out in sharp relief. This is likely a Bible or a prayer book, as a contemporary engraving of the picture identifies the subject as Hendrik Swalmius, a preacher in Haarlem who was ordained in 1600.
  
  
  Title
  Portrait of Hendrik Swalmius
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1639
  
  Artist
  Frans Hals
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  ca. between 1582 and 1583-1666
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Dutch
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on oak panel
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 10 5/8 × 7 7/8 inches (27 × 20 cm)
  Framed: 20 × 17 1/4 × 2 inches (50.8 × 43.8 × 5.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Painting
  
  
  Credit
  City of Detroit and Founders Society Joint Purchase
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  49.347
  
  
  Copyright
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