Offered by Galerie Barnabé
Frans POURBUS the Younger (Antwerp, 1569 – 1622 Paris) Circa 1610 Portrait of the Infanta of Spain, Isabella Claire Eugenie Oil on cradled panel, 105.5 x 77 cm
PROVENANCE
- Private collection, Oise, until December 2024.
The composition of our painting which is unknown, turns out to be an unpublished work and not a replica of a known work.
The rich motifs of the costume, comparable to the finest examples by Frans Pourbus II’s palette and style, are reminiscent of those in the full-length Portrait of Infanta Clara Isabel Eugenia by Frans Pourbus II, kept in the Royal Collection, London.
However, as our painting’s quality of the face is a notch below that standard, we are compelled to attribute our painting to the artist’s workshop.
Our work on a parqueted panel can be compared with a painting depicting the Regent of the Netherlands, Isabella Clara Eugenia, dated 1599, kept at the Tallinn Museum in Estonia. The painting in question, listed as autograph by Frans Pourbus the Younger and painted on a small panel, 42.6 x 36.6 cm, appears to be by the same hand as our portrait.
Furthermore, for comparison, another painting by the same artist, Portrait of Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain (1566–1633), c. 1600, oil on copper, 28.5 x 22.5 cm, is kept at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as a work from the studio of Frans Pourbus II (inv./cat. no. SK-A-510).
The recent cleaning of the painting has revealed the apocryphal nature of an old monogram and a date " SC (interlaced)...ft / 1545 ", which were probably added during the restoration carried out in the 19th century.
