Portrait of Samuel Ampzing

Frans Hals's Portrait of Samuel Ampzing of around 1630 depicts the Haarlem clergyman and historian who wrote the first major history of the city of Haarlem — Beschryvinge ende lof der stadt Haerlem of 1628. Ampzing's civic patriotism and his role in documenting Haarlem's cultural heritage made him a significant figure in the city's intellectual life, and Hals's portrait captures the combination of scholarly discipline and civic pride that characterized the humanist clergy of the Dutch Republic.

Hals paints the writer-preacher with the intellectual intensity appropriate to a man of letters and the cloth. The face is rendered with sharp, alert strokes that convey Ampzing's mental energy, while the dark costume and background maintain the sobriety expected of a Reformed minister and scholar.