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(Neerlinter 1605/06 - c. 1660 Brussels)

The painter’s studio is one of the best known works of this Flemish artist specialised in the genre scene. A painter – long thought to be a self-portrait – prepares a composition in chalk on a panel. The figures seated around a table represent the five senses (from left to right: Hearing, Sight, Taste, Touch and Smell): it is a painting within a painting. It is not a realistic studio scene: so many models did not pose at the same time; and the still life in the foreground shows once more that this is an allegory of the power and vanity of painting.