|  Frans Hals, 1580 - 1666, was a Dutch painter best known for portrait paintings. He painted wealthy patrons as well as a whole range of people from all walks of life. He is noted for his large group portraits. He belonged to the Baroque era.
Find out more about Frans Hals at Wikipedia and also at Art Renewal Centre.
The Jolly Toper, 1627
(also sometimes called The Merry Drinker)
This painting is at the Rijsk museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands - click on the image there to see a large version. There is information about Frans Hals in English on this page but the painting commentary is in Dutch - with the help of Google Translate, we have produced this English version:
"The Merry Drinker. Smiling man with beard and big black hat, at half-face with a berkenmeier (beer glass we think) in the left hand and the right lifted up. Around his neck there is a medallion on a chain."
Judith Leyster also produced a painting entitled The Jolly Toper a couple of years later (see below) and we were able to retrieve some information from the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem which owns her painting*.
The drinking man is called Pekelharing. His name means "salt herring", a Dutch specialty that causes terrible thirst - Pekelharing was a bit of a drunk. Pekelharing was often the subject of paintings (including that of Frans Hals).
We have also discovered that Pekelharing was the main character in a number of farces.
A toper, of course, is a drunk.
*If you want to see the original text in Dutch yourself, go to the museum click on Collection, Search Collection and then drill down to Leyster in the list of artists. Sorry we cannot link directly to this page because of the way their website is set up. If you don't speak Dutch you can get a loose translation at Google Translate.
Compare Judith Leyster's version of the Jolly Toper which was painted a couple of years later in 1629.
You can see a larger version of this at Art Renewal Centre
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