The portrait measures 83 × 67.3 cm (32.7 × 26.5 in) and is inscribed at top right "Æ'TA SVÆ 26/A°1624", which expands to "aetatis suae 26, anno 1624" in Latin and means that the portrait was painted when the sitter was 26 and in the year 1624. The identity of the man is unknown, and though the recorded 19th-century titles in Dutch, English and French mostly suggest a military man, or at least an officer in one of the part-time militia companies that were often the subjects of group portraits, including some by Hals and later Rembrandt's "Night Watch" (1642), in fact he was as likely to be a wealthy civilian. Art historian Pieter Biesboer has theorised the painting possibly depicts Dutch cloth merchant Tieleman Roosterman, the subject of another of Hals' portraits.