The Collection of paintings of Sebastiaan Leerse

The Collection of Paintings of Sebastiaan Leerse, painted around 1625 and held at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, is one of Francken's most important Kunstkammer paintings because it documents an actual, named Antwerp collection. Sebastiaan Leerse was a wealthy Antwerp merchant and collector whose holdings are partially reconstructed through inventories and this painting. By depicting a specific collector's room rather than an idealised generic cabinet, Francken created an art-historical document as well as a decorative object. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, which holds many of the most important works in the Flemish tradition, places this painting in its home institution — Antwerp itself — giving it a particular resonance as a record of the city's own collecting culture. The painting's meticulousness in rendering the individual works on Leerse's walls makes it a primary source for understanding the Antwerp art market and taste in the 1620s.

The documentary ambition of recording a specific collection required Francken to render each depicted painting with enough fidelity to be recognisable. He achieves this through careful differentiation of scale, format, subject, and style within the miniaturised paintings, suggesting individual works rather than generic categories.