Boy With a Lute  1625

Inspired by Dutch Caravaggesque painters such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, Hals painted pictures of carefree musicians during the mid- to late 1620s. Here a young man pours a last drop of red wine onto his thumbnail, a signal to the innkeeper that he needs a refill, and to the viewer that (according to a Dutch rhyme of the period) "The glass is empty....