In the Rijks Museum an example of De Keyser’s early style is _The Company of Captain Cloeck_ (No. 1300). It is true it is dated 1632; but it still exhibits the hard-fleshed, vacantly staring faces, the figures in unimaginative poses and in no atmospheric envelop, and spiritless treatment of the fabrics. But compare _The Family Meebeeck Cruywaghen_ (No. 1349). Here the group is held together by a pleasing background of trees and house, bathed in a yellow glow. It is the homestead, and the comfort of it is reflected in the charming spontaneousness of feeling in the figures--father, mother, and grandmother, and six happy children. Each is delightfully individualized, and the expression of the whole picture is one of dignity and sweetness. Or for dignity, again, of a very refined order, take the equestrian _Portrait of Pieter Schout_ (No. 1650). There is here a fine feeling for color, the black horse and its rider’s black hat and yellow coat showing grandly against the drab gray of the lofty sky, below which are sand-dunes with light-green verdure. The picture, though scarcely three feet high, has a sense of space and the bigness of a large canvas. The startling difference between De Keyser’s two styles is well exemplified in the Berlin Gallery, where you can compare the hard spread-out arrangement in black dresses of _An Old Lady and Her Three Daughters_ with the genial dignity of _An Old Man and His Two Sons_. An exceedingly interesting _Portrait of a Woman_ hangs in the Museum of Art in Budapest. About fifty years old, she is seated in an arm-chair almost facing us; in a handsome black silk dress, trimmed with brown fur, with a wide starched ruff and a lawn cap [Illustration: FAMILY OF ADMIRAL PIETER PIETERSZ THOMAS DE KEYSER RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM] with wings over the ears. Her honest face is modeled in firm planes, and is ruddy with health. This painter-like and admirably human portrait is dated in the year that has been adopted as separating the artist’s two periods: namely, 1628. * * * * *