HAARLEM.- From 19 July there will be no fewer than eight new works to be seen in the Frans Hals Museum, six on loan, one gift and one that has been purchased. The portrait of a woman by Frans Hals which the museum has been loaned is exceptional. For a long time the painting was overpainted. In 1974 the great Frans Hals expert Seymour Slive categorized it as ‘doubtful’. The work has since been restored and Hals’s painting technique has now been revealed again. It is the second portrait of a woman by Frans Hals in the museum’s collection, joining six of his portraits of men and the large group portraits of militiamen and regents. The museum has also been loaned two landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael, two paintings by Jan Steen and works by Richard Brakenburg and Jan van Goyen. Jan Steen is known above all for his genre works. An early landscape by Jan Steen that is entirely in the tradition of Ruisdael