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 of his Sicilian works are individualistic. Van Dyck's portraits certainly flattered more than Velázquez's; when Sophia, later Electoress of Hanover, first met Queen Henrietta Maria, in exile in Holland in 1641, she wrote: "Van Dyck's handsome portraits had given me so fine an idea of the beauty of all English ladies, that I was surprised to find that the Queen, who looked so fine in painting, was a small woman raised up on her chair, with long skinny arms and teeth like defence works projecting from her mouth..." Some critics have blamed van Dyck for diverting a nascent, tougher English