Double Portrait of Albert and Nikolaus Rubens, c.1626/27 by Peter Paul Rubens
Canvas Print - 3494-RPP

By Isabella Brandt the artist had three children. His first-born daughter Clara Serena died at the age of twelve, and the mother died shortly afterwards, in 1626. The two sons Albert and Nikolaus are represented in this portrait. Without losing any of his adolescent freshness, Albert, aged about fourteen, has already assumed the posture of a young squire. In a black suit, with a large hat on his head, he is cross-legged, leaning against the pedestal of a column. The book he holds in his right hand shows that the carefree childhood has already passed for the proud Latin student. His younger brother, on the other hand, whom he seems to have protectively embraced with his left arm, can still afford childish amusements. Oblivious to the spectator, the colourfully dressed Nikolaus is absorbed in his play with the little bird.

The half-child, half-adult look of the big one, the little one still fully in the unencumbered world of the child, the brotherly affection that binds the two children whom the love and care of the father protects from the harsh reality all this Rubens has managed to convey in this masterly work. The artist's gift for understanding and characterizing the child in his innermost being is evidenced not only by numerous other portraits, but also by the mischievous cupids and angels in his painting. His own children sometimes posed for them, as well as for the images of the infant Christ and the little John. For example, he used the adorable drawing of the little Nikolaus with a coral chain for the figure of Jesus in the painting "The Virgin Mary Venerated by Penitent Sinners and by Saints" (Kassel), and the child's head from the Berlin Museum, we meet again with an angel in "Madonna with a Crown" (Munich). The oil study, attributed by some to Van Dyck, depicts the about two-year-old Albert, who - like his younger brother in the later double portrait - holds a bird tied by a string; the bird and the child's hands, however, were added only later by Rubens.