BAELLIEUR, Cornelis de
(b. 1607, Antwerpen, d. 1671, Antwerpen)

Interior of a Collector's Gallery of Paintings and Objets d'Art

1637
Oil on wood, 93 x 123 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Pictures known as Connoisseurs' galleries formed an independent genre in the painting of the Netherlands. Ideal evocations of fashionable seventeenth-century "collector connoisseurship", they were also related to the art market, with which Cornelius de Braeilleur was familiar: his father and his uncle were both dealers. here a large residence holds a collection of paintings and several curios (shell, scientific instruments, China porcelain) arranged on a table. A mythological painting in the Italian style is shown on an easel to potential buyers.