Rubens, Helena Fourment (1614–1673), and Their Son Frans (1633–1678)
Peter Paul Rubens
ca. 1635 · Oil on wood · European Paintings
The artist, his wife Helena, and one of their sons appear within an idealized version of the garden at the mansion Rubens built in his native city of Antwerp. 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 model. The juxtaposition of her plump and pearlescent young hand with his ruddy and weathered one emphasizes both their physical disparities and their physical connection. This painting was seized by the Nazis from baron Édouard de Rothschild in Paris and restituted to him in 1946.
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Date
- ca. 1635
- Medium
- Oil on wood
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in honor of Sir John Pope-Hennessy, 1981
