Moreelse painted at least three pairs of the two philosophers, Democritus and Heracilitus; Knole, Kent, Lord Sackville, Utrecht, Centraal Museum and Chicago, Art Institute. In each instance two canvases are used. A further single Democritus (The Hague, Mauritshuis) would suggest a missing Heraclitus. The Democritus and Heraclitus is here unusual in depicting both figures together even though Democritus, the cheerful philosopher, pointing to the globe (in this instance South America) and Heraclitus, the sad philosopher wringing his hands are familiar from the single pictures. The two philosophers Democritus of Abdera (c.460-457 BC - after 405 BC) and Heraclitus (working c.500 BC) are frequently paired in seventeenth century paintings. (Jan van Bijlert, Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Cornelis van Haarlem, Brunswick, Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum, and private collection lent to Dulwich Picture Gallery. Jacob Jordaens, Brunswick and Salvator Rosa, Hermitage, St. Petersburg and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Cornelis van Haarlem’s depiction of the two philosophers is also in the Schorr collection.

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