Following celebrated solo exhibitions of Vermeer and Rembrandt, in 2024 the Rijksmuseum presents Frans Hals, an exhibition of some 50 of the Dutch master’s greatest paintings, many on loan from top international collections. The exhibition runs from 16 February to 9 June 2024. Frans Hals is regarded as one of the most innovative artists of the 17th century, for his brisk, impressionistic painting style. With unparalleled boldness and talent, he captured the vitality of his subjects – from stately regents to cheerful musicians and children – and made them live and breathe on the canvas.

The Rijksmuseum exhibition provides a landmark moment as Frans Hals’s most celebrated painting, The Laughing Cavalier (1624), returns to the Netherlands for the first time in more than 150 years. It will travel from the Wallace Collection, London, where it has hung since 1870. The portrait’s temporary return to the Netherlands follows the London museum’s historic decision in 2019 to loan out artworks for the first time.