The painting shows a tastefully dressed young man in a floppy hat with his hand on his hip in a characteristic Hals pose.

Possibly this portrait was made to decorate a hofje or his brewery, so that people who worked for him or visited the premises could know what the owner Claes Duyst van Voorhout looked like.

The MET lists various sale entries from Lord Egremont's time up to their acquisition date.

In his 1989 catalog of the international Frans Hals exhibition, Slive included discussion of an old label on the back which listed the portrayed man as Claes Duyst van Voorhout, brewer in "De Zwaanschel".

[1] 20th-century archival research revealed that a Nicolaes Pietersz Duyst van Voorhout indeed was owner of the brewery called the "Swaenshals" (Swan's neck), who testified in Haarlem in 1629 that he was 29 years old, which fits the date for this portrait that was painted about 10 years later.