The small picture is the model for one of the three monumental wall paintings in the audience hall of the Vienna Hofburg. The emperor had commissioned the professor of historical painting at the Vienna Academy to illustrate his popularity among the people using three scenes from the immediate past of Austrian history. Krafft, who had worked for two years in Paris with Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) and had become familiar with the French concept of historical painting, was predestined for this work. The lifelikeness is based on a narrative description. This was one of the reasons why Krafft was able to give Viennese painting a significant boost.

This picture shows the ceremonial reception that the emperor received on his return from France. The negotiations on May 31, 1814, which led to the so-called "Peace of Paris," marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The mayor of Vienna received the monarch outside the city, at the triumphal arch in front of the Kärntnertor, which was specially built for the occasion. The popularity and closeness of the imperial family to the people is made clear by the cheering crowd.

This is the Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) at the Binnenhof in The Hague. Hanging from the ceiling are Southern Netherlandish and Spanish flags captured during the war. The representatives of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic are gathered in the hall. When Stadholder William II, son of Frederick Henry, dies at the end of 1650, most of the provinces decide after lengthy deliberations not to appoint a new stadholder on 21 August 1651. The war is over, and – as they concur – the country is more than able to face the future without the Oranges. The painting consists of a 52 × 66 cm wooden panel with attached to it a smaller 9 × 42 cm copper plate. When this plate is raised the view on the Great Assembly is obscured by a wall of paintings.

The present painting depicts a young man in a three-quarter pose, donning a feathered cap and holding a sword in his left hand. We find here obvious reminiscences of Caravaggio's painting. Nevertheless, Desubleo shows a clear tendency towards abstraction of form, pondering the classicising idealization of Domenichino's figures, and this would be one of the hallmarks of his art throughout his long career. This stylistic orientation makes Desubleo one of the leading exponents of Italian classicism.

This painting is one of the supreme achievements of Michele Desubleo, a Flemish artist who trained in Rome alongside his stepbrother, Nicolas Régnier, before joining the workshop of Guido Reni. Desubleo combines Reni’s sensual depiction of the human form, citing his Sacred and Profane Love (Palazzo Spinola, Genoa), with a magnificent still life comprised of musical instruments, painter’s palette, fragments of sculpture, and armor that must have satisfied his learned humanist audience

Here, as usually interpreted, the central woman is Minerva, holding a read lance and a plumed helmet (may be a continuation of Mantegna's 1502 Triumph of the Virtues, painted for the same studiolo also featuring a Minerva with a red lance). Glory hovers above her holding a crown whilst a seated female figure to the right is surrounded by symbols of the four cardinal virtues (a snake in her hair for Prudence, a sword for Justice, reins for temperance and Hercules's lion skin for Fortitude). Some interpret the seated black female figure on the right as Astrology, Science or Intellectual Virtue - she points outside the painting's space and thus (like the putto in Vice) draws the viewer's attention from one painting to the other.

After the studiolo's contents were dispersed, Vice was sold to Charles I of Great Britain, and Virtue was given to cardinal Richelieu around 1627 and moved to Paris. There they were both acquired by Eberhard Jabach in 1671, before being sold to Louis XIV - both still hang in the Louvre.

This picture and the Allegory of Virtue were painted as a pair for the studiolo of Isabella d'Este, with Vice probably the second of the two to be completed. This hypothesis is since only one (possibly non-autograph) sketch survives for Vice, unlike Virtue, for which several preparatory studies survive, along with a near-complete under-drawing – this suggests Correggio had become more proficient after the difficult gestation of Virtue.

Influenced by the Laocoon, the central male figure is sometimes identified as a personification of Vice but sometimes as Silenus (possibly from Virgil's Eclogues 6, where a sleeping Silenus is tied up by the shepherds Chromi and Marsillo and forced to sing by them and the nymph Egle) or Vulcan. It was even misidentified as Apollo and Marsyas by the writer of the Gonzaga collection inventory of 1542. This misunderstanding may have contributed to an Apollo and Marsyas (actually by the studio or circle of Bronzino) being historically misattributed to Correggio.

Jordaens chose to depict the fable’s culminating moment. On the right, Meleager’s uncles snatch the trophy from Atalanta. Angered, the hero brandishes his sword to kill them. In a tender gesture of fear, Atalanta attempts to halt Meleager’s vengeful fury. The scene is completed by the group of hunters on the left. The position of their weapons and arms, and the movement of their dogs, mark the composition’s rhythm and lead the viewer’s gaze to the main event.

Jordaens explored the same subject on other occasions. In the Museo del Prado’s version, the story is softened in a poetic manner. The fateful outcome is barely suggested by the protagonists’ gestures, which are sweeter and more evocative than in other versions. The Prado’s canvas is well adapted to the Baroque understanding of this subject, which interprets the story of Meleager and Atalanta symbolically, as the gods’ punishment for the double murder caused by the hero’s infatuation.