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Peter Paul Rubens, The Infanta Isabella wearing the habit of the Poor Clares © Bart Huysmans en Michel Wuyts
The Rubens House > Collection > Acquisitions > Acquisitions 2010 > Isabella wearing a habit
The Infanta Isabella wearing the habit of the Poor Clares
Isabella (1566-1633) and her husband, Archduke Albert, were among Rubens’s most important patrons.
After Albert’s death in 1621, Isabella joined the Poor Clares, a monastic order founded by St Francis and St Clare of Assisi. As a sign of mourning, Isabella dressed in the order’s habit for the rest of her life.
Rubens painted this portrait in 1625, when Isabella paid a short visit to Antwerp. Despite its plainness, Rubens’s superior qualities as a portraitist shine forth. With simple means he painted an extremely compelling likeness of his patroness. Her pose and gaze suggest a great deal of sympathy between the painter and his model, which lends the portrait an almost intimate character.
The sketchy nature of the picture is indeed remarkable: only the face and the veil have been worked out in detail. This had to do with the function of the portrait: Rubens used it as an example for the Infanta’s official state portraits and the replicas made of them in the studio.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
The Infanta Isabella wearing the habit of the Poor Clares
oil on panel
On long-term loan from a Private collection, Switzerland