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| Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614–1673), and Their Son Frans (1633–1678) |
Artist:Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
Date:ca. 1635
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:80 1/4 x 62 1/4 in. (203.8 x 158.1 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in honor of Sir John Pope-Hennessy, 1981
The artist, his wife Helena, and one of their sons appear within an idealized version of the garden at Rubens’s mansion in Antwerp, which survives to this day. The leather strap across Rubens’s chest alludes to his right, as a nobleman, to carry a sword, while the rhyming ribbon tied across his son’s chest playfully positions him as his father’s heir. There was a nearly forty-year age gap between Rubens and his second wife, whom contemporaries widely recognized as his muse and the model for paintings such as the Venus and Adonis also in this gallery. The juxtaposition of her plump and pearlescent young hand with his ruddy and weathered one emphasizes both their physical disparities and their erotic connection.
Provenance
Governor General of the Low Countries; Château of Tervueren, Brussels (until 1704?); John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire (1704?–d. 1722); the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace (1722–1883; inv., 1740); George Charles Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace (1883–84); baron Mayer Alphonse de Rothschild, Paris (1884–d. 1905); his son, baron Édouard de Rothschild, Paris (1905–d. 1949); his widow, baronne Germaine de Rothschild, Paris (1949–d. 1975; her estate, 1975–76); [Wildenstein, Paris and New York, 1976–78; sold to Wrightsman]; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, New York (1978–81)
Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org
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