Artwork Details
- Title
- Portrait of Rubens’ Wife
- Artists
- Unidentified (Flemish)Copy after Peter Paul Rubens
- Date
- 17th century
- Location
- Dimensions
- 27 1⁄8 x 21 1⁄4 in. (69.0 x 54.0 cm)
- Credit Line
- Bequest of Mabel Johnson Langhorne
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Portrait female — Rubens, Wife Of
- Object Number
- 1956.11.28
Artwork Description
The subject of this portrait, Helena Fourment, was the second wife of the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). They married in 1630, when he was fifty-three and she was sixteen. During his lifetime, Rubens’s works were much admired and copied by other artists, as in this portrait done by an unidentified artist. Paintings by Rubens, and copies of them, were also popular among nineteenth-century American collectors. Harper’s Weekly and other magazines fed public interest in Rubens, printing stories about his family and his beautiful wife Helena. In 1877, Harper’s described her as a “proud, stately lady in rich costume, her countenance expressive of languid complacency,” attributes nicely captured in this seventeenth-century portrait.
Works by this artist (625 items)
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Portrait of Rubens’ Wife
17th century, oil on canvas
UNIDENTIFIED
Copy after Peter Paul Rubens (Born: Siegen, Westphalia, Germany 1577– Died: Antwerp, Belgium 1640)
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