Militia Company of District XI under the Command of Captain Reynier Reael

Frans Hals painted this Militia Company of District XI in 1633, one of the large-scale civic guard group portraits that represent his most technically ambitious works and his most sustained contribution to the Dutch group portrait tradition. These paintings demanded the coordination of multiple life-sized individual portraits within a single coherent composition — each figure must be distinctly characterized and given appropriate dignity, while the group must read as a unified and convincing assembly. Hals's solution was to abandon the static, frontal row arrangement of earlier guild portraits in favor of more dynamic, animated groupings in which the figures interact, converse, and move, creating the impression of a festive gathering caught at a specific moment of collective life.

The contrast between Hals's bold, free brushwork in the left portion and Codde's smoother, more polished finish on the right creates a fascinating visual document of two different painting techniques side by side.