Sight (Portrait of Robert van den Hoecke)

This is one of five paintings intended to hang together, each of which denotes one of the five senses – a common theme for painting in the Low Countries in the seventeenth century. In each painting Gonzales Coques has used a traditional activity to represent the relevant sense. This is Sight, depicted as a painter holding up his palette and a picture of what seems to be a camp and some figures in a landscape.Each sense is also a real portrait. This is Robert van den Hoecke (1622–1668), a painter and engraver who worked in Antwerp and Brussels. He became Contrôleur des Fortifications in Flanders – the plan on the table, the baldric (belt hung over the shoulder) and the sword presumably refer to this office. He has been identified by an inscription on an engraving of the portrait published in 1661.