A tronie is a type of work common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression. These works were not intended as portraits or caricatures but as studies of expression, type, physiognomy or an interesting character. The main goal of the artists who created tronies was to achieve a lifelike representation of the figures and to show off their illusionistic abilities through the free use of color, strong light contrasts, or a peculiar color scheme. Tronies conveyed different meanings and values and emotions to their viewers. Tronies embodied abstract notions such as transience, youth, and old age, but could also function as positive or negative examples of human qualities, such as wisdom, strength, piety, folly, or impulsiveness. These works were very popular in Holland and Flanders and were produced as independent works for the free market.

The Flemish painter Frans Floris distinctive head studies had become a form of
authorial achievement by 1562. While Floris made the head studies both for his own use and for the students and assistants in his workshop, some were clearly also created as works of art in their own right. The rapid, expressive brushwork of these panels suggests that he painted some heads as independent creative studies, and as such they anticipate the tronies of the 17th century. These studies became collectors’ items for local art lovers. Floris head studies testify to the self-conscious artistic culture of Antwerp.