Self Portrait with Isabella Brant

In the fall of 1608 , Rubens, worried about his mother’s serious illness, was forced to return to Antwerp . He came from Italy , where he went back in May 1600 and where he served as the court painter of the Duke of Mantua . In 1603 , on his instructions, Rubens traveled to Spain to deliver the gifts of the Duke to King Philip and the Duke of Lerma. After that, he alternately worked in Rome , Mantua and Genoa , where he created majestic altars and painted portraits.

The fame of his skill flew ahead of Rubens, and when he returned to Antwerp , every effort was made to leave him here forever. Archbishop Albrecht VII and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugene gave orders and the city and the Spanish state- runners, and in September 1609 he received the position of court painter.

But the final decision he made after falling in love with 18-year-old Isabella Brant , married her on October 3, 1609. Isabella was the daughter of a very revered Antwerp patrician and state secretary Jan Brant , whose portrait is also in the Old Pinakothek . She gave birth to a daughter and two sons. After her sudden death on June 20, 1626, Rubens wrote to the chief overseer of the Royal Library in Paris, Pierre Dupa :

For the first viewers of the picture, it seemed something new, hitherto unprecedented in Dutch painting, at least primarily its size. The double portrait is a really big picture. The figures of the artist and his wife seem so large for this painting that they initially even suggested that the painting could be cut off at the edges. The artist and his wife are depicted in full size and do not pose detachedly, as was customary, but are naturally correlated and are in contact with the viewer. The author intentionally gave the group portrait ambiguity of meaning and paid great attention to its composition.

This picture was created by Rubens shortly after marriage and depicts spouses against the background of a honeysuckle bush. Calm, even somewhat equanimous self-confidence comes from a picture in which the figures are depicted equally large and next to each other - an expression of the independence and equal position of the spouses. Rubens was sitting on a bench, and Isabella was kneeling beside him on a blue cloak thrown to the ground. The artist's pose is filled with extreme ease and freedom, he sits with his legs crossed. The history of the world portrait did not yet know such a relaxed movement of the model posing for the portrait.

As one of the critics accurately noted, Rubens depicted in this portrait not just himself and his wife, but a portrait of marriage. The gesture of a young woman full of inner freedom, trustingly putting her right hand on her husband’s hand, resembles the gesture of Giovanna Chenami from “ Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple ” by Jan van Eyck . Rubens retained its sacred meaning in meaning, associated with the sacrament of betrothal, but endowed it with a special warmth of intimacy, incorporating it into a whole system of ties that unite young people and develop the same theme in the picture. A touching gentle touch of the hands is part of an S-like curve that starts from the artist’s head and ends in Isabella’s lowered hand, linking the composition together.

An important role is played by the landscape background, which is essentially transformed into the real environment of the location of the portrayed. This illusion is reinforced by the chosen point of view, a land with herbs and flowers. Image seems to be part of living reality. However, the group portrait is devoid of any plaque of prosaism credibility. It is created according to the laws of the most skillful rhythmic organization of forms and volumes in space and on the plane. You can notice that the figures fit into the oval, that they are united by close color tones, especially golden ones. In the rich color scheme, the echoes of the sixteenth-century palette of Venetians, especially Veronese , are vividly felt, however, the very system of work with a smoothed hidden brushstroke, giving the impression of an enamel-like surface, betrays the hand of the northern painter.

• Borghezi S. Old Pinakothek: Munich: Album. 2003.
• T. A. Sedova . Old Pinakothek in Munich. M .: Art, 1990