(Antwerp 1618–1684)
Portrait of an elegant lady,
indistinct inscription centre left: “Chi voll … liberta sua vita patria”,
oil on copper, 30.6 x 22.2 cm, framed

Coques worked in a small-format type and style of portraiture influenced by Anthony van Dyck, making the aristocratic portrait available to a patrician clientele.

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, a distinct tendency to smaller formats can be observed in the Netherlands. In terms of size, Coques’s portraits of individual patricians are comparable to those by his colleagues, whereas his family portraits are far smaller than the average contemporary group portrait. Coques can therefore be referred to as the leading protagonist of portraiture in the cabinet format. Based on the theory and the compositional principles of the cabinet picture, his family and group portraits display numerous attributes selected from a repertoire of conventional motifs, which were nevertheless used to underscore the sitters’ individuality. The meaning of his portraits goes beyond the mere identification of his sitters and extends to a symbolic codification of their maxims of life. Portraits in the cabinet format embedded in a collection promoted a discourse on personal life in the medium of painting.

An alternative attribution to Hieronymus Janssens (Antwerp 1624–1693?) has been suggested.