(Antwerp 1593–1678)
Abraham Grapheus as Saint Andrew,
oil on panel, 65 x 49 cm, framed

The oak panel bears the clear Antwerp panel maker’s mark of Guilliam Aertsens (active 1612 to 1626) and the branding irons marks of the hand and castle of Antwerp.

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

Literature:
A. Merle du Bourg/C. Joubert, Abraham Grapheus, model van Jacob Jordaens, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, 2012, p. 20, no. 55 and p. 76 no. 53

Abraham Grapheus (c. 1545/50?–1624) was the Keeper of the Guild of Saint Lukein Antwerp. As such he was responsible for keeping the Guild books and maintaining the Guild house. He also oversaw the artists’ celebrations, banquets and religious festivities. The portrait of Grapheus, in his Guild raiment and with the Guild silver and gold drinking vessels and table ornaments, by Cornelis de Vos in 1620, hangs in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunst in Antwerp. It hung in the Guild itself from 1620 until 1794.

Jacob Jordaens joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1616 and, following Cornelis de Vos, was appointed its Dean in 1621. Around these two dates, he and Anthony Van Dyck used Grapheus’ distinctive physiogonomy as a model for their apostle paintings and larger compositions. Both young artists were then working closely together in the circle of Peter Paul Rubens and his studio in Antwerp.

Rubens’ apostles executed for the Duke of Lerma in 1610-2 inspired Jordaens and Van Dyck to embark on their own paintings of the same subject. In the present painting, Jordaens derives the pose from Rubens’ Saint Philip and the x-shaped cross from his Saint Andrew (both now in the Prado) and uses Grapheus’ strong features and his own vibrant brush to create a vivid and expressive image, presumably for a patron. This particular painting is the only one known of Grapheus as an apostle that remains in a private collection.

Abraham Grapheus rapidly became Jordaens’ favourite model. He appears in some of Jordaens’ best-known large compositions including The Four Evangelists in the Louvre, The Homage to Ceres in the Prado and The Allegory of Fertility in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. Van Dyck’s portrayals of Grapheus can be seen in The Descent of the Holy Spirit in Potsdam and his Saint Peter in the Hermitage. The Hermitage also possesses a Head of an Old Man by Jan Lievens for which Grapheus was the model.