55.9 × 44.1 cm
This intriguing panel, part portrait and part genre painting, was possibly painted by Coques, who specialized in small-scale, finely worked portraits and family groups. Its unfinished state gives us a glimpse into a practice that may have been shared by other Dutch artists in which the artist painted the heads and objects in a room—here the closely observed velvet-covered armchair and the implements related to the task of writing—while leaving the men’s clothing at the level of underdrawing. Perhaps at this point a studio assistant would have taken up the painting.
[https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656485]