Long dismissed as dull face painting, portraiture as a visual art gained new interest with the rise of contextual art history, the study of works of arts as products, reflections, and sometimes motivators of the social and cultural concerns of their time. Whether taken to encompass the studies of anonymus heads that have now been shown to belong to the seperate category of 'tronies', or confined more strictly to the representation of individuals whose historical identity is essential to the content of the work, portraiture clearly constituted a fascination for Dutch and Flemish consumers of the early modern period. The aim of this volume is to show a balanced hand of current international research on 17th-century Flemish and Dutch - apparently pokerfaced - portraiture.