Honeysuckle Bower
 | |
| Artist | Peter 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 3 October 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
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The couple, close-up
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Isabella Brandt
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The hands
External links
Media related to Honeysuckle Bower by Peter Paul Rubens at Wikimedia Commons
Notes
- ↑ Kristin Lohse Belkin, Rubens, London: Phadon (1998): 95–98. ISBN 0-7148-3412-2
- ↑ Martin Schawe, Alte Pinakothek Munich, 2nd. ed., Munich: Prestel (2002): 76. ISBN 3-7913-2239-7
- ↑ Hans Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585–1700, New Haven: Yale University Press (1998): 121–2. ISBN 0-300-07038-1
- ↑ Belkin, 98.
