Lot 713 | Nicaise de Keyser | In Rubens' Studio

KEYSER, NICAISE DE
Antwerp 1813 - 1887

Title: In Rubens' Studio.
The artist surrounded by friends, family and patrons.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Mounting: Parquetted.
Measurement: 90 x 115cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower left: NDe Keyser XX 1846.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

As if on a theatre stage, Nicaise de Keyser has several people from Peter Paul Rubens' circle perform. The great Baroque painter himself has taken a seat in front of the easel, painting tool in hand, listening to a singing virtuoso. To the right, Anthonis van Dyck, Rubens' favourite apprentice, mimes a cavalier playing the lute. In the centre, Hélène Fourment, Rubens' second wife, is enthroned with one of her children. She stood in portrait to her husband for several paintings. Behind her, wearing a ruff and fur-trimmed coat, is Archduke Albrecht VII, regent of the southern Netherlands and an important patron of Rubens, while scholars are gathered around a table on the left. A young woman who Rubens portrayed during his lifetime, probably his sister-in-law Susanne Lunden, appears twice - in person and mirror-inverted on the easel painting. With this trick, De Keyser brings together several levels of reality in one picture: That of his own epoch, the 19th century, that of the Baroque period, as well as the supra-temporal level of the painted painting on the easel, which outlasts the times.
The unusual work - a kind of figure show of the "golden age" of the Netherlands - can be attributed to the important phase of historical genre painting, which replaced the exemplary history painting, first in France, then at the up-and-coming Belgian Academy, which de Keyser headed as director. Instead of depicting universally valid moral teachings, painters now sought to capture historical events or persons in a historically accurate manner - for example, by rendering the costumes of the sitters with great precision and the greatest possible authenticity, as in this case.