The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting a Collector's Cabinet

By 1621 the southern Netherlands had enjoyed a rare stretch of peace under its Habsburg governors, Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella, and that peace was about to break. Albert died that year. This painting, made with Hieronymus Francken, shows the couple visiting a collector's cabinet, a room crammed with pictures, sculpture and curiosities. It is really a picture in praise of collecting itself, and of the two rulers as patrons of it. Jan Brueghel, the finest flower painter of his day, set an enormous bouquet at the centre and crowned it with a sunflower, one of the earliest times that bloom stands for princely patronage. Many of the paintings shown on the walls are recognisable works of the period.