Laughing Cavalier Laughing Cavalier The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a portrait by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals in the Wallace Collection in London, which has been described as "one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits". The title is an invention of the Victorian public and press, dating from its exhibition in the opening display at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872–75, just after its arrival in England, after which it was regularly reproduced as a print, and became among of the best known old master paintings in Britain. The unknown subject is in fact not laughing, but can
Laughing Cavalier Marquess of Hertford, who outbid Baron James de Rothschild at more than six times the sales estimate. It was in Hertford's Paris home in 1871, listed as "portrait d'un homme" ("portrait of a man"), and then brought to London, probably for the purpose of exhibiting it in a large and long loan exhibition of old master paintings at Bethnal Green, which was deliberately sited away from the West End of London to attract the working classes. The exhibition was a huge success and "A Cavalier" (the catalogue title) a particular hit with both public and the critics; it played a