Portrait Of The Painter Frans Pourbus The Younger, Nordic School Of The XVII Century

The oil on canvas depicts the painter Frans Pourbus the Younger (Antwerp 1569 – Paris 1622), renowned as one of the greatest portraitists of his time and admired in all the courts of Europe.

Born into a family of artists, he initially worked in Brussels, where he was noticed by Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, during a journey to Flanders. The duke invited him to court as a portraitist, and Pourbus thus moved to Mantua in the early seventeenth century, becoming the painter of the Gonzaga family and working during the dynasty’s most brilliant period. In 1609 he moved again, this time to Paris, to the court of Marie de’ Medici, so great was his fame and the esteem in which he was held by the nobility of the time. His most celebrated portraits are certainly those of the Mantuan court (Vincenzo I, Eleonora de’ Medici and their children) and of the French royal family, Henry IV and the young Louis XIII.

The composition shows him in three-quarter view, his gaze directed toward the viewer, while he is intent on painting a miniature and dressed elegantly, wearing the unmistakable ruff. In the upper right corner appear the date 1609 and the painter’s age, forty.

The painting is of northern origin, probably the work of a Flemish or German artist, and is in good condition.