The Lost City: the Frans Hals Museum was once intended for old men

We go back to the early seventeenth century. In 1609, a building was erected on the Groot Heiligland that was specifically intended to house the old men of the city. The entrance gate of what is now the Frans Hals Museum was once the entrance to the Oudemannenhuis. There are still references to that time today. For example, on top of the facade is a statue of an old man.

“It is said that one of the first residents of the Oudemannenhuis served as a model for this”, Marrigje Rikken tells us. She is curator at the Frans Hals Museum. “Below that you also see the weapon with two sticks for the old men.”

A lottery was held to fund the construction of the Oudemannenhuis. The Rhetoric Chambers of Haarlem also contributed by giving performances.

Rikken: “Ultimately that resulted in 55,000 guilders, a huge amount at the time.”

Inner garden

We walk inside with Marrigje Rikken and enter the courtyard of the house. On both sides were the side wings with the houses for the old men. “With a covered gallery, so that you could still get to the other side dry when it rained.”

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The side wings of the museum now consist of a series of small rooms. Once such a room consisted of two rooms. In one such room were two men. There was hardly room for more than two beds and a table with chairs.

“Of course there were common areas,” says Marrigje Rikken. “There was a communal dining room. So they didn’t have to do much more here than sleep. And sit here now and then if they didn’t want to be in the company of others.” In total, the house housed sixty men.

In the beginning you couldn’t choose who you came to the room with. That option came later, but then you had to pay for it. For an extra fee you could even be placed on your own.

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Regents

For the regents, well-to-do citizens who volunteered here with respect, the rooms were larger. Rick shows us that. “There are two regents’ rooms. The larger of the two was for the male regents. There were more male regents than females. That also explains the difference in size. They took care of the ins and outs of the Old Men’s House. The men took care of the finances and the women ensured that the household ran smoothly.”

Frans Hals

The regents liked to have their portraits taken. “We also know quite well who the regents were at what time. That changed, every few years new regents arrived. So a new regent piece was made every few years. Old men’s house painted, especially for these two spaces.”

Although the paintings hang in the building, they are no longer where they were intended. “A lot has happened to the entire building, of course. A new fireplace has been installed in this regent’s room and new paneling from later times. They were mantelpieces, so they can no longer hang in their original place.”

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The regents of Hals now hang in a larger room on the other side of the museum. The regents and the regents are placed next to each other. The women look at us sternly. “Yes, that is often said. What I like about it is that they are really painted as old women. Not necessarily more beautiful than they were. That you can see their life experience on their faces. Or here discipline prevailed, I think that was not too bad. I have not come across that in the sources.”

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The other regent piece shows a man about whom there has been a discussion for some time: is he drunk or is there perhaps something else going on with him?

It has been suggested by doctors that this person may have had partial facial paralysis. Which actually means how well Frans Hals managed to hit him as he was. And that was of course something in the seventeenth century, old age then came with more defects than now. Now our health care system is very different. Reaching a high age was not for everyone. And reaching old age in good health was, of course, something else. That’s why those old men’s houses were so important, because they were often old men in need of help.

After two hundred years, the Old Men’s House ceased to exist. There were more and more money problems and the men moved to the Proveniershuis in the Grote Houtstraat. After a thorough renovation, the current museum became a shelter for Haarlem orphans.

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