Focus on The Man in the Chair and discuss the Painting.
The painting shows an old man sitting in a chair (or on his throne) with his feet on a cushion. He sits beside an open window.Above the man's head there hangs a painting and a statue of Saint Arnolfus. Daylight enters the room through the open window. De Braekeleer worked out the small details very carefully in this oeuvre.This painting appears to be a traditional genre scene: an anonymous character in a banal situation. Yet there is poetry in the work because of the artist's tireless concentration and subtle sensitivity to the various shapes of light and his use of colorite and various elements.De Braekeleer wasn't interested in historicity or historical reconstruction; rather, in this painting he used the Brouwershuis as a peculiar, contemporary antique curiosity. The old man, sitting on his throne, looking straight at us, might represent a tangent memento mori; highlighting the past glory of the Brouwershuis, its collapse, and eventual desertion.The identity of the sitter is unknown. The old man doesn't appear in de Braekeleer's sketches for the painting.
genre scene memento mori