These four portraits of women, two double ones and two single ones (P02073, P02074 and P02076) presented standing and down to kneelevel, use the same architectural setting. The series is given visual unity by the use of a central niche and two more, barely visible ones at the sides, separated by masonry pillars and decorated with small lions’ heads in the centre.This use of shared elements is probably due to the fact that they were originally intended for the same gallery of portraits.With this end in mind, Cronenburch arranged the four older women with their bodies slightly turned, two towards the left and two towards the right. In three of the portraits a green curtain of differing shapes and widths in the background gives the compositions greater richness and monumentality. In two cases this curtain partly or completely covers the central niche, while in the third (P02073) it obscures the pilaster and the start of the niche on the right.The table with a green cloth to be seen in two of the portraits imitates royal portraits by Anthonis Mor, but Cronenburch adopted a much more austere tone with more rigid figures. In the double portrait (P02075) the words ‘NASCENDO MORIMVR’ inscribed across the two pilasters beneath the impost, as well as the skull and the flowers held by the young girl, suggest the vanitas theme and refer to the transient and ephemeral nature of worldly things.The pink held by the young girl in the other double portrait also refers to death. In 1636 these four portraits were inventoried for the first time as ‘Flemish women’ in the Alcázar in Madrid in the ‘Pieza oscura junto a la Galería del Mediodía’ [dark room next to the Mediodía Gallery], along with another by the same artist (now lost). From that date on they formed part of the royal collection before entering the Museo del Prado in 1847. Although it has not been possible to identify these female sitters, who were undoubtedly members of the same family or related by marriage, they must be members of the Frisian rural aristocracy for whom Van Cronenburch worked.They may have lived in Bergum or nearby, given that the artist is documented there from 1565. ( Silva Maroto, P.: El retrato del Renacimiento, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 478).