(Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
Portrait of Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria,
oil on canvas, 141.5 x 88 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Juan Caballero Alcaráz, Madrid, 1951;
art market;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
J. Hernández Perera, Rubens y el Arciduque Alberto, in: Goya, no. 26, 1958, pp. 81–85 (as Rubens);
M. Diaz Padrón, Peter Paul Rubens, El Arciduque Alberto de Austria, El medio, el espacio y el tiempo, Barcelona 2013, p. 49, cat. 29, fig. 32 (as ‘répetición’)

We are grateful to Gloria Martínez Leiva for suggesting that the present painting was executed in Peter Paul Rubens’s workshop (written communication).

After the appointment of Rubens as court painter to the archdukes in 1609, one of his main missions was to disseminate through portraits the image of his employers. Rubens tried to reflect with his portraits the ideal of the Christian prince promulgated by Spanish writers of the period. The portraits he created were intended to reflect the personification of the King of Spain in the government of the Netherlands. Based on the previous models, Rubens gave life to a direct portrait in which the archduke appears dressed either in a completely black suit or with rich embroidery. He synthesises the Venetian technique of colour with the Nordic tradition of light interior and the usage of pure colours. The sitter’s eyes look for the spectator’s gaze and prevent him from escaping his communicative impact. It is an official portrait, but it engages the spectator in a dialogue. This model is known in three different formats – full-length, three-quarter-length, and bust-length – and was subject to multiple copies by Rubens and his workshop, where artists as important as Van Dyck, Gaspar de Crayer or Jacob Jordaens were employed. It is documented that about ten portraits exist of the archduke, which were made by Rubens’s hand. However, a huge number of copies of great quality made by his workshop are known, some of them with the master’s intervention. Recently, a total of 49 portraits of the archduke have been analysed by Matías Diaz Padrón. Thirty of them display the archduke wearing a black court dress with the sleeves embroidered in gold and silver, and in 19 he is dressed completely in black. The three-quarter-length portrait of the archduke is the one with the largest number of copies or replicas known. Finally, some full-length portraits of the archduke still exist.

The present painting depicts the archduke full-length and standing in the middle of a room structured by a wide red curtain and a pilaster in a right angle. This model derives from the three-quarter-length portrait devised by Rubens for the archduke. The portrait is of superior quality and in some details, like the embroidered sleeves or the feathers on the hat, betrays a fresh brushstroke reminiscent of the brushwork in Rubens’s portraits. For this reason, J. Hernández Perera considered it to be an autograph work by Rubens. However, a detailed comparison of the painting technique between one of Rubens’s portraits and the portrait under study reveals that although free, the brushstroke is nevertheless different, although it tries to imitate the master. In general, the present painting seems more precise in the drawing, whereas Rubens’s portraits are based on the direct application of colour. The difference of conception and modelling of the figures between our portrait and those made by Rubens himself is even more evident when we compare the archduke’s face. In Rubens’s portraits, it seems as if blood vessels were spreading under the skin of the face, contributing to great vivacity. He also highlights the bone structure of the archduke’s head, emphasising the supraorbital bone and the prominent chin and nose. However, the face in the present portrait lacks the archduke’s distinctive features. His face is more rounded, his nose less elongated, and his chin less prominent, giving the portrait an appearance different from the rest of the archduke’s portraits. Given the differences in modelling and brushstroke of the present painting with respect to those made by Rubens himself, we can conclude that this work was made by one of his workshop collaborators. They were mostly talented and trained artists who in many cases habitually reproduced the models created by the master for the sake of dissemination. All these portraits were executed to spread the image of the powerful governor of the Spanish Netherlands.