Portrait of Maria Vernatti

Maria Vernatti, painted in 1648 for the Aurora Art Fund, was a member of the prosperous Anglo-Dutch community in the Netherlands. The Vernatti family had English connections, reflecting the close commercial ties between the two maritime nations during the mid-seventeenth century. Hals's revolutionary loose brushwork, capturing the immediacy of fleeting expression with a boldness that seemed impossibly spontaneous to his contemporaries, was rediscovered by the Realists and Impressionists in the nineteenth century as an anticipation of their own aims.

Hals renders the woman's face with the broad, simplified handling of his late-1640s manner, the palette reduced to essentials and the brushwork increasingly free. The white collar and cap are painted with decisive economy, each touch of lead white placed with confident precision.