Franz Hals

"Franz Hals was a great painter; for truth of character, indeed, he was the greatest painter that ever existed.... He made no beauties, his portraits are of people such as we meet every day in the streets.... He possessed one great advantage over many other men--his mechanical power was such that he was able to hit off a portrait on the instant. He was able to shoot the bird flying--so to speak--with all its freshness about it, which even Titian does not seem to have done.... If I had wanted an exact likeness I should have preferred Franz Hals." So said James Northcote, the Royal Academician, talking with his friend James Ward, upon Art and artists, in the little back parlour of his humble dwelling, 39 Argyll Street, long ago absorbed in the premises of a great drapery establishment.