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| Joachim Wtewael Portrait of Christina Wtewael van Halen 1601 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Portrait of Jan Govertsen van der Aer, shell collector of Haarlem 1603 oil on canvas Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
"Now for these wals of flesh, wherein the soule doth seeme to be immured before the Resurrection, it is nothing but an elementall composition, and a fabricke that must fall to ashes; All flesh is grasse, is not onely metaphorically, but literally true, for all those creatures we behold, are but the hearbs of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in our selves. Nay further, we are what we all abhorre, Anthropophagi and Cannibals, devourers not onely of men, but of our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a positive truth; for all this masse of flesh which wee behold, came in at our mouths: this frame wee looke upon, hath beene upon our trenchers; In briefe, we have devoured our selves. I cannot beleeve the wisedome of Pythagoras did ever positively, and in a literall sense, affirme his Metempsychosis, or impossible transmigration of the soules of men into beasts: of all Metamorphoses or transmigrations, I beleeve onely one, that is of Lots wife, for that of Nabuchodonosor proceeded not so farre; In all others I conceive no further verity then is contained in their implicite sense and morality: I beleeve that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and is left in the same estate after death as before it was materialled into life; that the soules of men know neither contrary nor corruption; that they subsist beyond the body, and outlive death by the priviledge of their proper natures, and without a miracle; that the soules of the faithfull, as they leave earth, take possession of Heaven: that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandring soules of men, but the unquiet walkes of Devils, prompting and suggesting us into mischiefe, bloud and villany, instilling, and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affaires of the world. That those phantasmes appeare often, and doe frequent Cemiteries, charnall houses, and Churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the Devill like an insolent Champion beholds with pride the spoyles and Trophies of his victory in Adam."
– from Religio Medici (1635) by Sir Thomas Browne
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| Paulus Moreelse Portrait of the artist Abraham Bloemaert 1609 oil on panel Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Portrait of Lady Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel ca. 1620 oil on canvas Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona |
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| Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Marchesa Balbi of Genoa ca. 1623 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Frans Hals Portrait of a man 1630 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Thomas De Keyser Portrait of Frederick van Velthuysen and his wife Josina 1632 oil on panel National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Rembrandt Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III oil on panel 1632 Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Isaac Fuller Portrait of a man ca. 1645-50 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Adriaen Hanneman Portrait of a man 1655 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Isaac Luttichuys Portrait of Martijn Gaertz 1656 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| John Michael Wright Portrait of Sir Robert Rookwood 1660 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Claude Lefèbvre Portrait of a man 1670s oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| John Riley Portrait of William Chiffinch ca. 1680 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |