The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting a Collector's Cabinet is a 17th-century Flemish collaborative painting, now regarded as by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hieronymus Francken II.
Archdukes Albert and Isabella jointly ruled the Spanish Netherlands in the beginning of the 17th century and were considered patrons of the arts.
The walls are covered by paintings by Flemish artists and there are also numerous sculptures including the bronze Allegory of Architecture by Giambologna.
During this early ‘encyclopaedic’ phase, the genre reflected the culture of curiosity of that time, when art works, scientific instruments, naturalia and artificialia were equally the object of study and admiration and the cabinets depicted are populated by persons who were as interested in discussing scientific instruments as in admiring paintings.
[1][5] The sunflower turning toward Albert and Isabella symbolizes the way that the arts will grow and blossom in the light and warmth of princely patronage.
[3] In 2012 The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting a Collector's Cabinet featured in Off the Wall, an open-air exhibition on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland.