Take a second and stop scrolling. What catches your eye? Swipe for the full piece. Is it the birds of various sizes, hues, and species in the water, trees, and sky? The verdant foliage? Or perhaps the smallest creatures of the bunch, painted strategically around the larger beasts? The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark was painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder during his appointment as court painter to Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella, rulers of the Southern Netherlands (a region in western Europe that corresponds to Belgium today). The conquest of the Americas in the 1500s spurred an increased curiosity about the natural world. By the time Brueghel was painting, turkeys (from North America) and guinea pigs (from South America), seen here in the foreground, were familiar animals to European rulers. The Archdukes kept a menagerie of rare animals and birds, including parrots from Central and South America, at their Brussels palace, which enabled Brueghel to study and paint the...