Portrait of a Woman Standing (Kassel)

"Portrait of a Woman Standing" is a captivating work by Frans Hals, a celebrated painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Created between 1618 and 1620, this masterpiece can be admired at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. It is often displayed alongside another of Hals' significant works, "Portrait of a Man Standing" which also resides in the same museum.

In the painting, the woman is adorned in elegant attire, featuring a wedding ring on her right forefinger, a distinctive figure-eight collar, lace wrist cuffs, a heavy gold chain, and a diadem cap. Despite the inclusion of a coat-of-arms in the composition, the woman's identity remains unknown.

The artwork was first documented in 1910 by art historian Hofstede de Groot, who offered a detailed description. In 1974, Seymour Slive classified both portraits as pendants and noted that they had been previously cataloged as "A Man in Spanish clothes" and "A Woman at knee-length." These paintings were transported to Paris in 1806 and subsequently returned in 1814. Slive, along with other art historians, concurred with the traditional dating of around 1620 for these works but also highlighted their stylistic similarities with Hals' earlier militia group painting from 1616.

In 1989, Claus Grimm corroborated these earlier assessments and identified the paintings as numbers 14 and 15 in Hals' oeuvre. This painting continues to stand as a testament to Hals' artistry and the enduring legacy of Dutch portraiture.