Agenda
gulbenkian.pt
  • Flanders, c. 1630–2
  • Oil on panel
  • Inv. 959
  • Painting

Portrait of Helena Fourment

Peter Paul Rubens

In 1630, Peter Paul Rubens married Helena Fourment, the daughter of a rich silk-and-rug merchant from the city of Antwerp. It was around this time that the painter’s second wife, who was 36 years his junior, began to appear frequently in the artist’s work in both compositions of a mythological nature and individual and family portraits. In The Garden of Love (National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire), which dates from c. 1630–2, the upper part of a figure identical in every respect to this one can partially be seen.

The painting bears witness to Rubens’ technical skill in the rendering of the textures and hues of the black satin dress, the balanced harmony of the striking volumes, the elegance of the smooth flesh tones, and the audacious and triumphant plasticity of the forms. The low line of the horizon accentuates the monumental verticality of the figure, who wears a black satin dress and a broad-brimmed hat bearing an ostrich feather, in accordance with the fashion that prevailed among the wealthy bourgeoisie of the time.

The striking visual impact of the final result is evident in all of Rubens’ work, reflecting a great creative talent which marked the development of the best Baroque style in Flanders. This painting previously belonged to the collection of Catherine II of Russia.

Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Count of Orford, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, 1743–5, Sale 1779; Catherine II of Russia, 1779–96; Russian Imperial Family, 1796–1917; Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 1917–30. Acquired by Calouste Gulbenkian through Antikvariat, Moscow, March 1930.

H. 186 cm; W. 85 cm

Washington D. C. 1950

European Paintings from the Gulbenkian Collection, exhibition catalogue. Washington D. C.: National Gallery of Art, 1950, pp. 92–3, no. 40.

Vlieghe 1987

Hans Vlieghe, Rubens Portraits of Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp. London/New York: Oxford University Press/Harvey Miller, 1987, vol. II, pp. 102–9.

New York 1999

Katharine Baetjer and James David Draper (eds.), 'Only the Best'. Masterpieces of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, exhibition catalogue. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, p. 88–9, cat. 42.

Dukelskaya and Moore 2002

Larissa Dukelksaya and Andrew Moore (eds.), A Capital Collection. Houghton Hall and the Hermitage. Published for the State Hermitage Museum, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002, p. 216–17, no. 117.

Sampaio 2009

Luísa Sampaio, Painting in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. Lisbon/Milan: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum/Skira, 2009, pp. 50–1, cat. 16.

Lisbon 2011

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, 2011, p. 118, cat. 92.

Updated on 15 june 2022

Cookies settings

Cookies Selection

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation uses cookies to improve your browsing experience, security, and its website performance. The Foundation may also use cookies to share information on social media and to display messages and advertisements personalised to your interests, both on our website and in others.

These cookies are used to enhance your browsing experience, security and our website's performance, allowing you to access the main features of the website. Therefore, they are always enabled. This type of cookies includes cookies that allow you to be remembered as you browse the website during a single session.

These cookies collect information about the use of the website to improve the services provided and to evaluate the performance of the website. Some of these cookies may be used to test pages or the functionality of the website by measuring the reaction of users. These cookies may be our own and / or owned by third parties.

These cookies are third-party cookies that allow to connect to social media and share multimedia content from our website on those networks. Some of these cookies help us to adapt advertising outside of our website to the interests of the users. By disabling these cookies, it will no longer be possible to directly share our content in any social media

For more information about cookies and the processing of your personal data, please see the Privacy and Cookies Policy. You can change your cookie settings at any time through the link at the bottom of the page.