Career
Aletta is wearing a costly bridal stomacher called a "bruidsborst", worked with gold thread and showing various flowers symbolizing marriage. She wears it over a colorful purple and red skirt that is draped over a French fardegalijn, a wheel shaped device meant to extend the skirt, causing the stomacher to protrude forward and which supported the heavy gold chain wrapped around her gown and through her "vlieger". The vlieger was a full-length sleeveless robe open in front and with two holes at the side for a belt chain.
Her vlieger is edged with black velvet and shows off her stomacher and skirt.
Her sleeves are attached via shoulder wings to her dress with small silver aglets. Around her neck she is wearing a starched linen figure-eight collar, and over her hair she is wearing a diadem cap with lace edging.
She is holding a pair of embroidered bridal gloves and wears a wedding ring on her right forefinger. She is also wearing gold bracelets and lace wrist collars and her ensemble shows her to be one of Hals" most wealthy sitters.
Their brewery called the Hoeffijser or Hoef-yzer was located on the Donkere Spaarne (near the Teylers Hofje today).
After Jacob died in 1638, Aletta remarried another Haarlem brewer, Nicolaes van Loo (1607-1641), but he died soon after. Both of Aletta"s husbands were painted by Frans Hals:.