Rückkehr des Friedens

Rückkehr des Friedens — Return of Peace — is the German-language title of Van Thulden's 1655 canvas held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, indicating its early entry into Habsburg imperial collections. The Kunsthistorisches Museum's holding of this peace allegory places it alongside the museum's extensive Flemish Baroque holdings, where it participates in a larger narrative about Northern European art at the Habsburg court. The year 1655 places this painting in the context of the ongoing Franco-Spanish war, making its peace theme aspirational rather than commemorative. Peace allegories produced without a specific treaty to celebrate operated as general arguments for the desirability of peace — a form of political advocacy in paint. Van Thulden's version draws on Rubens's established allegorical vocabulary while adapting it to the more restrained, later-Baroque manner.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum canvas would have been executed at a refined finish level appropriate for imperial display. Van Thulden's handling is confident and broad, the allegorical figures given the sculptural presence of figures trained from Rubens's example. The composition's colour scheme — warm peacetime hues contrasting with the cold greys and smokes of departing war — is carefully managed.