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
Anthony van Dyck majority of his most important patrons in the nobility, such as Lord Wharton and the Earls of Bedford, Northumberland and Pembroke, took the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War that broke out soon after his death. The King in Council by letters patent granted van Dyck "denizenship" in 1638, and he married Mary, the daughter of Patrick Ruthven, who, although the title was forfeited, styled himself Lord Ruthven. She was a Lady-in-waiting to the Queen, in 1639-40; this may have been instigated by the King in an attempt to keep him in England. He had spent most of 1634