Portrait of Maritje Claesdr Vooght

Frans Hals painted Portrait of Maritje Claesdr Vooght around 1639 as a pendant portrait accompanying the portrait of her husband Jacob Claesz Buyck (or Buyck). The couple portraits that Hals painted in this period followed the convention of male on the left, female on the right when the two works hung together, their composition coordinated so that each figure turns slightly toward the other's absent presence. Maritje's portrait shows the restrained dignity Hals brought to female portraiture: the plain black dress and white collar of Dutch bourgeois convention, the face observant and specific, the brushwork somewhat quieter than in his most expressively animated male portraits without losing the essential vitality that distinguished all his work.

The white millstone ruff is painted with Hals's characteristic swift, abbreviated brushstrokes that suggest the lace's translucency and complex folds with remarkable economy of means.