Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614–1673), and One of Their Children | Peter Paul Rubens | All | European Paintings | Collection Database | Works of Art

Gallery LabelThis magnificent portrait of Rubens, his second wife, Helena Fourment, and one of their five children has usually been dated on stylistic grounds to the late 1630s. The child's blue sash, heavy shoes, and plain collar resemble adult male attire and suggest that he is either Frans Rubens, born in 1633, or, more likely, Peter Paul, born March 1, 1637.

Rubens married Helena Fourment on December 6, 1630, when he was fifty-three and she was sixteen. Helena became the model and the inspiration for many paintings by Rubens dating from the 1630s, particularly those dealing with themes of ideal beauty or love. The present composition was considerably revised during execution to shift the emphasis from Rubens, as the dominant half of a courtly couple, to Helena, as ideal wife and mother. The parrot, long a symbol of the Virgin Mary, suggests ideal motherhood, while the fountain, caryatid, and garden setting imply fertility and recall Rubens's own garden in Antwerp, where he frequently escorted Helena.

The painting hung at Blenheim, the Churchill family seat, between its presentation to the first Duke of Marlborough by the city of Brussels in 1704 and its purchase by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild in 1884.

NotesRadiographs reveal that the figure of Rubens was originally shorter; the head was nearly frontal and was inclined to the left, the eyes probably directed toward Helena; the right arm was raised to the chest. The first self-portrait in our picture was very similar to the earlier self-portrait in the Rubenshuis, Antwerp, to a drawing at Windsor, to the head in the panel of "Rubens and Helena Fourment Walking in Their Garden" (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), and to the male figure on the left in "The Garden of Love" (Prado, Madrid). The radiographs and an inspection of the painting's surface also indicate that the composition (not the support) was arched above at some earlier stage in its execution. Rubens's repainting of the self-portrait accounts for a number of awkward elements in the final composition [see Ref. Liedtke 1984]. The purpose of much of the repainting in areas surrounding the figures was to focus the composition, the essential subject of which is Helena as wife and mother. The genesis of the composition is to be found mostly in Rubens's "The Garden of Love" in Madrid. A drawing of a young woman with an ostrich fan (Musée du Louvre, Paris), generally recognized as a study for one of the principal figures in "The Garden of Love," except for the position of the hands more closely resembles the figure of Helena in the present picture. A portrait drawing at Windsor is probably a study for the self-portrait that was painted out of the Museum's picture. Three chalk studies, one for each of the portraits, are in the Louvre. When at Blenheim, the picture was engraved in mezzotint by Charles Phillips and by James McArdell. John Eccardt closely followed the composition of the MMA picture when he painted the portrait of Charles and Mary Churchill, dated 1750 (Lewis-Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut). Bernard Lens also copied the MMA work it in a miniature of 1721 (MMA 1984.442). For the related works mentioned above, see Ref. Liedtke 1984.

The panel has been cradled.

ProvenanceGovernors 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); 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)

Exhibition History

London. British Institution. June 1865, no. 52.

Paris. Musée de l'Orangerie. "Chefs d'oeuvres des collections françaises retrouvés en Allemagne par la Commission de Récupération artistique," June–August 1946, no. 69.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," October 24, 2008–February 1, 2009, online catalogue.

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