In Christie van der Haak's paintings, ornament played an important role from the start, such as in the Madonna portraits of the mid-eighties, which she partly covered with patterns. In a sense, she thus united the Western figurative tradition with the Islamic tradition in which ornament is dominant.
In the early 1990s she made a series of paintings about national history. This portrait of Philip II stands against a background of straight geometric patterns that overlap in circular cutouts. In the lower part between the crossed there are small battle scenes.
The counterpart of this painting is a portrait of his rival William of Orange that has the same size. In the exhibition they hang next to each other on a wallpaper with geometric patterns.