(Antwerp 1581–1642)
The Adoration of the Magi,
oil on copper, 38.4 x 30.2 cm, framed

Punched into the back of this thick copper panel is the mark of the Antwerp coppersmith Pieter Stas, which consists of his initials inside a heart-shaped motif (fig. 1). 

We are grateful to Ursula Härting for confirming the attribution of the present painting as an autograph work by Frans Francken the Younger upon first hand inspection and for her help in compiling the catalogue note. Her written report is available.

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Antwerp, the theme of the Adoration of the Magi enjoyed enormous popularity and numbered among the favourite motifs in the oeuvre of Frans Francken the Younger. The present painting, rediscovered only recently and previously unpublished, not only represents the artist’s earliest version of Christ’s incarnation, but — having been painted shortly before or around 1600 — is generally one of the earliest works by Frans Francken known to date, as Ursula Härting points out. 
The painting therefore is of utmost importance to understand the artistic development of the painter. 

Ursula Härting writes: ‘I have so far only seen few similarly early works, all of which have remained unpublished to date. […] This small-sized devotional picture presents itself as precious and extremely detailed. The Virgin bends over the Child in a graceful and protective gesture. Her head is adorned by a transparent veil. Jesus is depicted seated in Mary’s lap, near a cold grey stone. The carefully ornamented coat under the ermine collar of the king at the front, the contemporary pieces of jewellery of the two kings behind him, the expressive faces of the male protagonists, whose characteristic figural types the artist has already defined here, and the star above the barn, which has been covered with ground shell gold — all of this invites the spectator to contemplate the scene in prayer and at the same time pays tribute to the newly born king (Matthew 2:2). Two kings, the one from Ethiopia and the one from Asia, wear crowns on their heads, whereas Joseph has taken off his hat, appearing bareheaded, as does the European king at the front (for the changing identifications of the magi see C. Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie, Berlin 2012, pp. 473–75). The latter has also laid down his sceptre and thus his claim to power. He kneels humbly before the Child, as was a common iconography in Francken’s lifetime for miraculous or intercession images (see U. Härting, Catholic Life in the Churches of Antwerp, in: Divine Interiors, Experience Churches in the Age of Rubens, exhibition catalogue, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, ed. by C. Baisier, Antwerp 2016, pp. 22–37).’

The depiction as such and individual details recur similarly in the work of Hans von Aachen, to whom Frans Francken was indebted for having received important inspiration not only in his early years (see fig. 2: Aegidius Sadeler after Hans von Aachen, The Adoration of the Magi, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, inv. E Sadeler AB 3.76, and U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere, Die Gemälde, Freren 1989, pp. 64–66). As Ursula Härting will show in a forthcoming publication, the form of the punched mark of coppersmith Peter Stas on the reverse side also points to this early period (fig. 1). 

Frans Francken the Younger was born in 1581 son to the Antwerp painter Frans Francken the Elder. He trained to become a painter in his father’s studio and is known to have produced his first independent works from 1597 onwards. With its delicate glazes in the protagonists’ heads and clothes and in the small figures in the background, the present copper panel already betrays Francken’s great talent as a painter.