A Group of Flemish Gentlemen (known as 'The Guild of Saint Luke, Antwerp')

Traditionally identified as members of the Guild of Saint Luke, Antwerp's painters' and artistic professionals' guild, this group portrait of Flemish gentlemen at St Catharine's College, Cambridge carries particular art-historical weight. If the identification is correct, this is a rare collective self-document of the Antwerp artistic community to which Coques himself belonged, placing him in an unusual position as both maker and — perhaps — depicted subject. The Guild of Saint Luke regulated painting practice, controlled apprenticeships, and organised the city's visual arts economy; its members ranged from master painters to gilders, glaziers, and print dealers. Group portraits of guild members were an established Low Countries tradition, most famously in Amsterdam, and commissioning one indicated the Antwerp guild's self-conscious identity during a period of economic transition. The Cambridge location suggests the work entered English collections during the seventeenth or eighteenth century through diplomatic or scholarly channels.

Group portraits demand compositional balance across multiple figures without hierarchy becoming rigid. Coques distributes the sitters in overlapping diagonal arrangements, using different costume tones — blacks, greys, with occasional warmer hues — to create variety. Each face achieves individual characterisation suggesting sittings from life rather than studio types.