The collector´s cabinet

 Landscapes, genre painting and still lifes which hitherto had not been regarded very highly met with a particular esteem among princely or bourgeois collectors in the age of the Baroque. In palaces and patrician houses picture collections were established and proudly presented. With those "cabinets d'amateurs ", their owners followed the model of Dutch and Flemish art collectors ("liefhebbers") in the 17th century, the Golden Age ("Gouden Eeuw").

Art becomes a part of pre-modern privacy. Keenly observing the art market of his time, the connoisseur appreciated religious scenes as well as idyllic landscapes with pastoral scenes, small formats of utmost technical perfection filling quickly the intimate rooms of the Baroque leisure class competing with the huge collections of great princes.