| Gonzales Coques is most admired as a painter of single or group portraits, which are notable for their elegant style. He also produced so called conversation pieces and gallery interiors, most of them small-scaled intimate works. Gonzales was a student of Pieter Brueghel III and David Ryckaert. He became a master in the Antwerp Guild in 1641, and he might have traveled to England, working for Charles I, before that year. In Antwerp he worked for Prince Frederick Henry and the Princess of Orange. His commission from Prince Frederick Henry in 1647 for a Story of Psyche was largely executed by A- v.Coques's other patrons included Frederick William Elector of Brandenburgh, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, and Don Juan of Austria. In 1671 Coques became court painter to the Comte de Monterrey. In 1665 Coques had become dean of his guild. Coques's early career was influenced by Gerard Ter Borch,whose small portraits and genre pieces had found their way to Flanders in 1640. Van Dyck's English period also affected Coques he had the nickname Little van Dyck, but the latter preferred to work in a smaller, more intimate scale than van Dyck. Coques is considered among the best of the second rank Flemings. |
