It is likely that this picture comes from the latter part of the artist’s career as it shows the strong influence of Van Dyck. The artist had abandoned all traces of the influence of Rembrandt, his master, and replaced it with a much blander style popular in many Northern European Courts in the middle years of the seventeenth century. The Flemish influence is seen in the slightly sweet facial expressions of all the figures, combined with the robust Baroque composition. Although for all his life the artist was working for Protestant patrons, such a picture would have been equally acceptable to a Catholic one.

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