A portrait of a gentleman, bust-length

Known as the 'petit Van Dyck' thanks to his elegant small-scale compositions such as this oval portrait on copper, Coques was a favored portraitist among the patrician class in the Southern Netherlands, as well as in England, the Netherlands and Germany. His portraits reveal an affinity not only to the work of Anthony van Dyck, but also to the Dutch masters of small-scale portraiture such as Thomas de Keyser and Gerard ter Borch.