Landscape with Rudolf von Habsburg and the priest

Coques employs a restrained chiaroscuro, using soft shadows and bright highlights to model the figures, horses, and trees. The interplay of light filtering through the canopy creates a luminous atmosphere, while the careful rendering of foliage and water reflects the painter’s Flemish attention to detail.

Created circa 1650, the canvas entered the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s holdings, where it remains on display. Its attribution to Coques aligns with his known practice of adapting Anthony van Dyck’s compositional elegance within a Baroque framework.

During the mid‑1600s, Flemish artists often blended portraiture with landscape, situating historical figures in idealized natural settings. Coques’s work exemplifies this trend, merging a dynastic subject with a serene, almost pastoral environment that reflects contemporary tastes for narrative depth and visual harmony.