The Flemish ‘Pictures of Collections’ Genre: An Overview

Abstract

The ‘pictures of collections’ genre was a special type of cabinet painting, and was invented, refined and popularized within the artistic community of early seventeenth‐century Antwerp. Depicting a sumptuous array of luxury goods, natural curiosities, connoisseurs and nobles in elegant interiors, the paintings that make up this genre were purposefully seductive, designed to parade the consummate skill of the Southern Netherlands’ finest artists at a time when the market for works of art was growing and highly competitive. Yet there is a heavy lacing of symbolism and allegory apparent in many of the images, and they were also intended to speak to the intellectual preoccupations of the age, from the cultivation of personal virtue to the honing of the critical faculties necessary for philosophy. The genre is explored by tracing stages in its evolution in the seventeenth century, and four types of collection making up the genre are distinguished. Finally, the historiography of the genre is investigated.