Honeysuckle Bower

The Honeysuckle Bower
Artist Pieter Paul Rubens
Year ca. 1609
Type Oil on canvas
Dimensions 178 cm × 136.5 cm (70 in × 53.7 in)
Location Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The Honeysuckle Bower (ca. 1609) is a self-portrait of the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens and his first wife Isabella Brant. They wed on October 3, 1609, in St. Michael's Abbey in Antwerp, shortly after he had returned to the city after eight years in Italy.[1]

The painting is a full-length double portrait of the couple seated in a bower (wikt) of honeysuckle. They are surrounded by love and marriage symbolism: the honeysuckle and garden are both traditional symbols of love, and the holding of right hands (junctio dextrarum) represents union through marriage.[2][3] Additionally, Rubens depicts himself as an aristocratic gentleman with his left hand on the hilt of his sword.[4]

Details

Notes

  1. ^ Kristin Lohse Belkin, Rubens, London: Phadon (1998): 95-98. ISBN 0-7148-3412-2
  2. ^ Martin Schawe, Alte Pinakothek Munich, 2nd. ed., Munich: Prestel (2002): 76. ISBN 3-7913-2239-7
  3. ^ Hans Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585-1700, New Haven: Yale University Press (1998): 121-2. ISBN 0-3000-7038-1
  4. ^ Belkin, 98.

Infante Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633) · The Deposition (1602) · Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma (1603) · Portrait of a Young Woman (1603) · Virgin and Child (c. 1604) · Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria (1606) · Susanna and the Elders (1607) · Samson and Delilah (1609-1610) · Honeysuckle Bower (1609-1610) · Raising of the Cross (1610-1611) · Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1611) · Prometheus Bound (1611-1612) · Descent from the Cross (1611–1614) · St Sebastian (c. 1614) · The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (1615-1616) · Romulus and Remus (1615-1616) · Adoration of the Magi (1616-1617) · The Fall of the Damned (ca. 1620) · Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1620) · Perseus Freeing Andromeda (1620) · Marie de' Medici cycle (1621–1630) · Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1625-1626) · The Fall of Man (1628–1629) · The Feast of Venus (c. 1635) · Consequences of War (c. 1638) · The Three Graces (1636-1638) · Judgment of Paris (c. 1638-1639)