Portrait of a woman aged 36

Frans Hals's Portrait of a Woman Aged 36 of around 1637 depicts an unidentified Haarlem woman in the formal mode of Dutch bourgeois female portraiture, her age inscribed within the composition to document the specific biographical moment. The woman's composed expression and her formal black dress with white lace create the characteristic image of Dutch Protestant female respectability that Hals rendered across hundreds of commissions with sustained quality and psychological variety.

The white headpiece and collar are rendered with Hals's characteristic virtuosity in painting white linen, the starched folds captured through bold, confident strokes of thick white paint. The face beneath this frame of white is modelled with warmer, more blended tones that create a convincing sense of living flesh.