Painter Frans Francken was quite quick to achieve recognition and became popular during his life time. He used the money he made to buy a house in the centre of Antwerp and set up his own workshop. Many artists painted or drew copies of his works, including Flemish artist Antony van Dyck. Van Dyck made at least two portraits of Francken the Younger — a painting and an etching for his series of prints entitled Iconography.
Portrait of Painter Frans Francken
Creation period
17th century
Dimensions
24,1x15,4 cm
Technique
etching on paper, sixth state out of six
Collection
0
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Antony van Dyck
Portrait of Painter Frans Francken
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Antony Van Dyck’s Iconography is a big project that the artist worked at continuously from 1627 to 1632 and from time to time — through 1636. The series included portraits of the best people of his time — royalty and nobles, army commanders, philosophers and humanists, scholars and artists, including Frans Francken the Younger, Jan Brueghel and the Hellish Peter Brueghel. Van Dyck engraved plates himself for 15 portraits carefully detailing heads and faces and outlining figures and clothes
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Portrait of Peter Brueghel the Younger (Hellish), Antony Van Dyck, etching, 17th century, img via: commons.wikimedia.org
The other prints are made by other engravers using van Dyck’s drawings. They were masters of the Rubens school — Lukas Vorsterman, Paulus Pontius and Schelte Bolswert. The first full edition of Iconography issued by Antwerp publisher Gillis Hendris in 1645 had over 100 images. The number increased with every subsequent edition and by the end of the 18th century the series had over 200 portraits.
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Kunst- und Raritätenkammer (cabinet of curiosities), Frans II Francken the Younger, 1636, img via: wikipedia.org
Frans II Francken the Younger is a Flemish artist and the best known representative of his family. He was born in 1581 to the family of artist Frans Francken the Elder. He learned painting from his father in Antwerp and his uncle Hieronymus Francken in Paris.
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Later he worked for the family workshop, and in 1605 became an independent artist and joined the Saint Lucas Guild, a workshop association of Antwerp artists. Later he worked for the family workshop, and in 1605 became an independent artist and joined the Saint Lucas Guild, a workshop association of Antwerp artists.
Francken the Younger was a universal master — he painted subject pictures, was fond of historical, religious and mythological themes. His pictures were fairly small in size. Francken the Younger promoted the comical genre of the ‘scene with monkeys’ where primates are dressed and are trying to behave like people. He created and developed the genre of gallery pictures, or pictures of cabinets (rooms) of curiosities (kunstkammer) — on neutral background he depicted rooms with statuettes and sculptures, small ceramic objects, coins and pictures on the walls each of which was clearly painted and had a subject and composition of its own. Some gallery pictures had attributes of natural sciences — instruments, rock samples or anatomy models.
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Irbit State Museum of Fine Arts
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Portrait of Painter Frans Francken
Creation period
17th century
Dimensions
24,1x15,4 cm
Technique
etching on paper, sixth state out of six
Collection
0
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