Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614–1673), and Their Son Frans (1633–1678)

The artist, his wife Helena, and one of their sons appear within an idealized version of the garden at Rubens’s mansion in Antwerp, which survives to this day. The leather strap across Rubens’s chest alludes to his right, as a nobleman, to carry a sword, while the rhyming ribbon tied across his son’s chest playfully positions him as his father’s heir. There was a nearly forty-year age gap between Rubens and his second wife, whom contemporaries widely recognized as his muse and model. The juxtaposition of her plump and pearlescent young hand with his ruddy and weathered one emphasizes both their physical disparities and their erotic connection.