Jan van Kessel the Younger
With the change of ruling dynasty from the Habsburgs to the Bourbons following the accession to the throne of Philip V of Spain in 1700, the artist's popularity at court went into decline.
This was likely due to his continued close relationship with the widowed former Queen, whom he accompanied in her exile in Toledo with the title of furrier's aid.
Van Kessel's main duty as a court painter was to paint portraits of the royal family and in particular the queen.
[8] His portrait style was described by his contemporary Antonio Palomino as very close to that of his fellow Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck.
[1] Upon his arrival in Spain he seems to have followed the style of royal portraiture introduced by Diego Velázquez and continued by Claudio Coello.
These portraits were characterized by their simplicity of shapes and color which included hardly any props or symbols and set off the sitter against a neutral background.
He had already commenced his innovation of Spanish court portraiture in the Portrait of Maria Nicolasa de la Cerda (c. 1685, Ministry of Public Administration, Madrid) in which he used vivid color and played with the contrast between a clear light and carefully placed shadows.
This is the case of the Portrait of Marie Louise d’Orléans, which is still listed as by an unknown painter on the Prado Museum website.
The mature woman surrounded by the small children symbolizes the virtue of charity while the young couple holding hands represent conjugal love.
They were treated as intimate objects that were regaled between family members as well as friends and were therefore in a less formal style than the official portraits.
The first known small portrait he made was the effigy of Charles II (now lost) which was placed in the "big jewel" that the king gave to his spouse Maria Anna of Neuburg as a matrimonial present upon his arrival in Spain in 1690.
[10] A pair of small portraits of the royal couple are also attributed to him in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum and were likely created to be sent to the Russian court as a diplomatic gift as it shows the king in armor.
Two small effigies of Philip V of Spain and his spouse Maria Luisa of Savoy, dated around 1701, are in the collection of the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid.
Similar in style to those of his father, these still lifes are perfectly balanced compositions, which are characterized by an attention for detail and the use of delicate colours.
Pseudo-Jan van Kessel the Younger is the notname given to an artist or workshop to whom or which are attributed about 200 small still lifes produced in Southern Europe in the late 16th and early 17th century.
