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Diptych (left: Male Portrait; right: Portrait of Three Women in Prayer)

Frans Pourbus the Younger

Basic information

ID: Ж-2002
Author: Frans Pourbus the Younger
Name: Diptych (left: Male Portrait; right: Portrait of Three Women in Prayer)
Technique: oil painting
Material: wood oil
Dimensions: 52.5 x 26 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Frans Pourbus the Younger
Artist's lifetime: 1569–1622
Country: Flanders
Biography: Frans Pourbus the Younger was a Flemish portrait painter and a representative of the Northern Renaissance. He was the son of Frans Pourbus the Elder (1545–1781) and grandson of Pieter Pourbus (1523–1584). He entered the history of art as the author of numerous state portraits of European nobility at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries.
He was born in Antwerp into a family of painters. He acquired his first drawing skills in the family workshop and in 1591 became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.
From 1599, he worked at the court of the governors of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert of Austria and Infanta Isabella of Spain, in Brussels. The following year, he became the court painter to the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I Gonzaga, where he worked side by side with Peter Paul Rubens.
In 1609, at the invitation of Queen Marie de' Medici, he moved to Paris, where he took up the post of official court painter. He remained in France until the end of his life and died in Paris in 1622.
The works of Frans Pourbus the Younger are characterised by a jewel-like precision in the rendering of details: luxurious fabrics, lace, ruff collars, and jewels. The artist's artistic heritage became an important stage in the development of Flemish portraiture. By combining the key trends of the 16th century, he laid the foundations for the transition from Renaissance aesthetics to Baroque stylistics.

Object description

The diptych is a typical example of a family prayer portrait from the early 17th century, executed in the traditions of the Flemish school of art. The compositions of both leaves are symmetrical. Framed by a green curtain against a black background, a kneeling man and three women are depicted. The characters are turned towards each other, and their gazes are directed at the viewer.
The left leaf depicts a grey-haired man with a long white beard, turned to the right. His hands are folded in a prayer gesture before an open prayer book or Bible. The book rests on a lectern covered with a light green fringed cloth. To the right above his head is the inscription: "ÆTATIS. 61. ANº 1601" (aged 61, the year 1601).
The right leaf depicts an elderly woman in a white cap, turned to the left. Her hands are also folded in prayer before an open book. Behind her back stand two young girls – her daughters, holding small crosses in their hands. In the upper left corner is the inscription: "ÆTATIS. 67. ANº 1601" (aged 67, the year 1601).
All characters are dressed in austere black attire with white corrugated ruff collars – "millstone ruffs", which corresponds to the conservative bourgeois fashion of Flanders at the time. The work is imbued with a spirit of prayerful concentration, piety, and family traditions.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Diptych (left: Male Portrait; right: Portrait of Three Women in Prayer)

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