Frans Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp, a city from which Hals' family, like many, had fled during the Fall of Antwerp (1584-1585) from the Spanish Netherlands to Haarlem, where he will live for the remainder of his life.

Hals had studied under another Flemish-émigré, Karel van Mander (1548–1606), whose Mannerist influence, however, is not noticeably visible in his work.

He had at the age of twenty-seven become a member of the city's painter's corporation, the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke, and he started to earn money as an art restorer for the city council.

He worked on their large art collection that Karel van Mander had described in his book The Painting-Book (Middle Dutch: Het Schilder-Boeck), published in 1604.

The most notable of these were the works of Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Jan van Scorel and Jan Mostaert, that hung in de St. Jans Kerk in Haarlem.

The restoration work had been paid for by the city of Haarlem, since all religious art was confiscated after the iconoclasm, but the entire collection of paintings will not be formally possessed by the city council until 1625, after the city fathers had decided which paintings were suitable for the city hall.

The remaining art that was considered too "Roman Catholic" will be sold to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, a fellow guild member, on the grounds that he remove it from the city.

It is under these circumstances that Hals began his career in portraiture, since the market for religious themes had disappeared.

The earliest known example of Hals' own art is the 1611 portrait of Jacobus Zaffius.

His 'breakthrough' comes in 1616, with the life-size group portrait, The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia Company.