Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse [SEP] creator
Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse
The Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse is a regents' group portrait of five regents and their servant painted by Frans Hals in 1664 for the Oude Mannenhuis in Haarlem, the Netherlands. It forms a pendant with the "Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse".
Though it is no longer known which name belongs with which face, the regents portrayed were Jonas de Jong, Mattheus Everzwijn, dr. Cornelis Westerloo, Daniel Deinoot and Johannes Walles.
Frans Hals painted
. The commissions proved lucrative, particularly since the regents only served for a few years, to be replaced with a new set of regents that were equally eager to be painted.
In some institutions the regentesses were all female, and so the portraits were of all-female groups, or there were mixed-gender regents who were painted separately, as in Hals' two portraits of the "Regents" and "Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse". Occasionally the painting depicted not just the regents but also others