This picture is considered one of Van Dyck’s most beautiful portraits. The sitter is Maria Louisa de Tassis, the niece of the Imperial Postmaster in Antwerp, Maximilian de Tassis. Facing the viewer is a young woman, approximately nineteen years old. She is wearing a magnificent dress made from skilfully worked silk and lace.

The opulent, almost pompous clothing with the multiple rows of pearl jewellery and the heavy jewels contrast with the obvious youth of the sitter who greets the viewer with a cautious smile.

Her unaffected charisma lends the distinguished pose a certain liveliness. Van Dyck’s technical approach displays the range of possibilities available in portraying the haptic qualities of a surface. The gentle, warm tones of the light brings to life the many folds of the sitter’s puffed up dress and the fluffy feathers of the fans.

On 20 November 1621 Van Dyck arrived in Genoa, the first stop on a tour of Italy. Friendly connections and a bevy of wealthy patrons ensured he often returned to the city. Antwerp and Genoa had seen not only the development of trading relationships between two port towns but also a lively artistic exchange. Rubens had his first successes as a portrait painter here during his stay in Italy. Van Dyck was able to pick up on this tradition with his Genoese portraits.

One such success is the portrait of a 32 year-old cavalier painted in 1624 that also documents the formative influence Titian had on Van Dyck. The model for this painting was a portrait by the Venetian painter that is now lost. This much is clear from Van Dyck’s Italian sketchbook (London, British Museum), which includes a portrait of a man in the same pose.

The vivacity of the portrait derives from the confluence of the hand gesture and the glance turned in the other direction. The fleeting nature of the moment combines with an element of prestige. The distinguished grandeur of his models earned Van Dyck the nickname ‘il pittore cavalieresco’.

This fascinating portrait of a gentleman is a masterpiece from the early 1650s, a period of stylistic transition in the artist’s oeuvre during which his pictures generally became darker with black and greys dominating. The reduced palette is, however, enlivened by a new and very free technique. Simplicity of form and colouring is typical of Hals’ late style, which was beginning to emerge at this time.

In this portrait Frans Hals is revealed as an outstanding master in the art of characterisation. He concentrates on the head and hand of the sitter. Beneath the broad brim of his black hat, the unknown man looks at us with a challenging glance. The remaining surface area is used only sparingly. The black of the clothing makes the man’s physical presence tangible. Wild brushstrokes in the background indicate the spatial context.

This picture is not only interesting for its artistic qualities. Its history is also of significance for Vienna. The painting came to Vienna in the nineteenth century from Brussels via Elsace and eventually ended up in the collection of Baron Albert de Rothschild. The Nazis stole it from the family in 1938. After the War the portrait was, along with many other objects, “bequeathed” to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) in Vienna before finally being returned in 1998.

The portrait of Clara Serena, Rubens’ daughter from his marriage to Isabella Brant, holds a particular place in the canon of great portraits of children in European art history. It is remarkable for the veracity and the intimate candour with which Rubens captured his daughter’s being.

The fluent technique and tightly cropped composition enhance the lively expression of the child’s alert eyes as she greets the viewer with disarming directness.

Rubens reduced the image to its essentials. A few summary indications of clothing suffice and the use of colour is reserved. The picture’s ground and the sitter’s garb are given in grey-green tones. The warm colours, tonal highlights and points of shine are reserved for the portrayal of the face. It is impressive with what economy of means Rubens was able to make do for this lively portrait.

A 1639 list of the estate of Jan Brant, the painter’s father-in-law, included a portrait on wood of Clara Serena. The painting under consideration may well be the listed work, a domestic souvenir of the artist’s family life.

The seal of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria with the date 1656 and attached to the reverse of the picture, is evidence that the painting was part of his collection at that time and that the canvas had already been mounted on a wooden board.

This double portrait shows the two eldest sons of Peter Paul Rubens from his first marriage to Isabella Brant, Albert and Nikolaus, at the age of about thirteen and nine.

Nikolaus, the younger son, still seems quite uninhibited. Paying no attention to the viewer, he is occupied playing with a live goldfinch on a string. It may be a hidden reference to the death of his mother in 1626: Justus Lipsius, a humanist much admired by Rubens, compared life to a bird that a boy holds in his hand and that often flies away prematurely.

In contrast to his younger brother Albert seems serious, almost adult and a little precocious, not least thanks to his fine dress and the relaxed elegance of his pose. His father fostered an interest in literature and a classical education, and the boy had his Latin first poem printed at the age of thirteen. The book in his hand is presumably a reference to his literary bent. Albert Rubens was to become one of the most esteemed classical scholars of his day.

The contrasting natures of the two brothers, an expression of their differing ages as well as their characters, brings a further humanist level of interpretation into consideration. In his discussion of Greece’s most famous painters, Plinius wrote that Parrhasius, the master of ‘eloquent expression’, painted two boys, embodying the “composure” (securitas) and “innocence” (simplicitas) of their respective ages. Rubens fused both characteristics into a harmonious picture.