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| Jan Daemen Cool A Dutch family group 1633 oil on panel (fragment with parents and two girls) National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Jan Daemen Cool A Dutch family group 1633 oil on panel (fragment with two boys) National Galleries of Scotland |
"These two pictures are fragments from a larger panel. The couple and their two daughters would have formed the right side of the original composition. This section was discovered with a London dealer in 1963 and bought for the National Gallery of Scotland to be reunited with the the fragment of the two boys. Unfortunately, the two pieces cannot be reconstructed, as the portion with the boys has been cropped so extensively that too much of the original picture is missing. This fragment was inscribed with the date 1633 and the ages of some of the figures in the original picture: the man and wife are both forty, the boys sixteen and thirteen, and the older girl is ten."
"Little is known of the artist, Jan Daemen Cool. He was born in Rotterdam in 1589, and by 1614 is recorded as entering the Painters' Guild of Saint Luke in Delft. While in Delft, he was possibly the pupil of Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, an extremely successful portrait painter whose style was popular for its restraint and lack of gratuitous expression. Cool eventually moved back to Rotterdam and in 1623 he married his second wife, Lysbeth Cornelisdr, the widow of the artist Louis Porcellis. Cool painted sober portraits of notable Rotterdam families. In 1652 he moved to the Oude Mannenhuis (old men's retirement home) in Rotterdam, where he died in 1660."
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| attributed to Carlo Ceresa Portrait of a man before 1679 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Gerrit Dou Interior with a young violinist 1637 oil on panel National Galleries of Scotland |
"This is the earliest dated painting by Dou. In it, a young musician looks up, his playing momentarily interrupted. Dou took evident delight in the play of light and shadow, and the rendering of surface textures, especially reflective materials. The musician is surrounded by books, music and a globe, which allude to learning. This reference is appropriate for Leiden, a distinguished university city and the location of Dou's workshop. Pieter Spiering, a Swedish ambassador to the Netherlands (1637-1645) bought the painting for Queen Christina of Sweden."
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| Anthony van Dyck Rachel du Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, as Fortune ca. 1638 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Anthony van Dyck The Lomellini Family ca. 1625-27 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"As a young artist, Van Dyck spent six years in Italy, from 1621 to 1627. He was based in the rich port of Genoa, where he painted sumptuous portraits of the local nobility. This is Van Dyck's grandest and most ambitious portrait of the period, painted for the Lomellini family. Giacomo Lomellini was Doge of Genoa from 1625 to 1627. He does not appear here, because portraits of the doge in office were forbidden, to prevent personal promotion. Giacomo's two eldest sons are shown standing next to his second wife and their two children."
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| Henry Stone Portrait of a man before 1653 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Jean Nocret Portrait of Henriette Anne, Duchess of Orléans ca. 1660-70 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"As an infant, Princess Henrietta (1644-1670) was smuggled to France by her governess after the imprisonment of her father, King Charles I. She grew up at the French court with her mother and became a favourite of the French royal family. In 1661, Henriette Anne – as she was now known – married Philippe, Duke of Orléans, but the marriage was not a happy one. Jealous of his elder brother, Louis XIV, who openly flirted with Henriette, Philippe later deprived his wife of any friends, leaving her isolated and lonely. Her health failing, she nevertheless contributed to international diplomacy by facilitating a treaty between the French king and her brother, King Charles II. Her untimely death was first blamed on poison, but subsequent autopsies revealed that she died of a punctured ulcer."
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| Carlo Dolci Sir Thomas Baines ca. 1665-70 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Giovanni Battista Gaulli (Il Baciccio) Portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini ca. 1675 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"The dramatic lighting and dark background contribute to the portrait's powerful impact. The painting was made about 1675 when Bernini was in his late seventies, and records the distinguished appearance of the brilliant and complex sculptor and architect. Baciccio, who according to his biographer encouraged his sitters to move and talk while he painted them, has deftly captured the older artist's alertness and the animated gesture of his hand emerging from the folds of his cloak. This painting became the model for the engraved frontispiece to Baldinucci's biography of Bernini and for the official portrait of Bernini in the Roman Academy of St. Luke."
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| Maerten Lengele Company of the Hague Arquebusiers ca. 1660 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Frans Hals Portrait of a man ca. 1657-60 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| John Michael Wright Portrait of Sir William Bruce, architect ca. 1664 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| John Michael Wright Portrait of Susanna Hamilton, later Countess of Cassillis 1662 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"Susanna Hamilton was the daughter of the 1st Duke of Hamilton, King Charles I's principal Scottish adviser. She spent her childhood at her father's house in Chelsea, surrounded by his great collection of paintings by Rubens, Correggio and Van Dyck. Wright's sensitive portrait shows Susanna Hamilton at thirty, and suggests character and intelligence rather than flattering her appearance. Five years later she married the nineteen-year-old Earl of Cassillis."
– quoted texts are from curator's notes at the National Galleries of Scotland