Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum on view at the Met through October 10, 2011.

De Jong writes: "Aside from sexual innuendo, moralism and paid for hire portraits (like the jewel compression on display in Petrus Scriverius and its pendant Anna Van der Aar) certain paintings illuminate a humane person behind Hals' incessant bonhomie… Malle Babbe– the owl on her shoulder was a symbol of folly—and the small, broken self-portrait cast an air of sadness and personality over the exhibition of so much drinking, carousing and masters of the guard."