Jan van Kessel the Younger are attributed about 200 small still lifes produced in Southern Europe in the late 16th and early 17th century. Jan van Kessel the Younger's small known authentic oeuvre is different in style and execution and substantially higher in quality than the works, which have now been attributed to Pseudo Jan van Kessel the Younger. His portrait style was described by his contemporary Antonio Palomino as very close to that of his fellow Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck. Van Kessel was a specialist of the genre of group portraits. An example is the "Portrait of a family in a garden" in
Ernest van Dyck prodigue" in Paris on 27 July 1884. With Camille de Roddaz, Van Dyck provided the libretto for Massenet's ballet set in Courtrai ('Légende mimée et dansée en un acte') "Le Carillon", for the Vienna Opera in February 1892. He appeared regularly at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1894, where his repertoire included Wagner (Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Tristan) and Massenet (Werther, Des Grieux). Van Dyck made a few acoustic records in the early 1900s (for Pathé, Fonotipia and Homophone) which show a voice prematurely past its prime after a dozen years of hard, declamatory use in heavy Wagnerian parts.