RUBENS, Peter Paul
(b. 1577, Siegen, d. 1640, Antwerpen)

Isabella Brandt (?)

c. 1626
Oil on oak, 98 x 72 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

The artist's first wife, Isabella Brant, may be the subject of this portrait of about 1626, the year of her early death. Its bold red background typifies Rubens's self-imposed pictorial challenges, trusting that his elegiac, posthumous image, with its massively enlarged eyes and strong yet graceful hands, could and would win over the regally demanding, flaming colour.