RUBENS'S PORTRAIT OF OPHOVIUS: A NEW SOURCE FOR VAN MILDERT'S EFFIGYAuthor(s): Cynthia LawrenceSource: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter 1986), pp. 28-31Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202377 .

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RUBENS'S PORTRAIT OF OPHOVIUS:

A NEW SOURCE FOR VAN MILDERT'S EFFIGY

Cynthia Lawrence

One of Peter Paul Rubens's most expressive and

moving portraits is the Louvre drawing of his

friend and confessor Michael Ophovius (Fig. I).1 The exiled bishop of'sHertogenbosch2 is shown

in a half-length frontal pose, seated in a high

backed chair, and wearing an elbow-length cape.

Ophovius squarely faces the viewer with a force

ful and penetrating gaze that is especially

poignant, considering his advanced age and

physical frailty. His furrowed brow and hooded

eyes, his disheveled dress and slightly hunched

posture indicate that this is a late portrait, dating

c. 1630-1635.3 Recent consideration of Ophovius's wall tomb

(Fig. 2) in St. Paul's, Antwerp, has suggested a

new context and a more specific date for the

drawing. In his diary entry of February 4,1631,

Ophovius recorded that he had seen Rubens at

Fig. 1 Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Michael Oph

Louvre, Paris. (Photo: Louvre)

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Fig. 2 Hans van Mildert, Monument of Michael Ophovius. St. Paul's, Antwerp. (Photo:

Lawrence)

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30

the artist's home that day to discuss the bishop's

funeral monument,4 a statement generally ac

cepted as indicating that Rubens was the tomb's

designer and that its plan dates from this meet

ing. Although it now includes an early eight eenth-century figure of the Madonna and Child

by Jan Claudius De Cock,5 it originally con

tained only the bishop's kneeling effigy, recent

ly attributed to Hans van Mildert,6 facing the

high altar above which hung Rubens's Saint

Dominic and Saint Francis Protecting the World

from the Wrath of God (c. 1618, Musee des

Beaux-Arts, Lyon).

Both the pose and gestures of van Mildert's

effigy indicate that it is dependent on Rubens's

portrait of Ophovius of c. 1618 (Fig. 3) in the Mauritshuis.7 Certainly, however, the effigy's

face is considerably older than that in the paint

Fig. 3 Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Michael Ophovius. Maurits

huis, Den Haag. (Photo: Mauritshuis)

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31

ing, thereby raising the probability that it was based on a later portrait. In this regard, the

similarities between the Louvre drawing and the

effigy are significant, especially if one allows

for the contrast between Rubens's fluid, expres

sive style and van Mildert's more somber, re

strained approach. First, both the drawing and

the sculpture emphasize the subject's rapt and

directed gaze. Second, they each delineate the

squareness of his head and include nearly iden

tical furrows on the brow and across the bridge

of his nose. Third, unlike other late portraits of

Ophovius in which he wears a cap,8 that in the

Louvre shows him bare-headed with his closely

cropped hair exposed and arranged as in the

effigy. Finally, and again in contrast to other

late portraits, both the drawing and the sculp

ture depict his beard closely trimmed to the

chin, where it terminates in a rectangular knob.

If, as these details suggest, the Louvre portrait

was van Mildert's source for the effigy's head, it

is tempting to see it resulting from Ophovius's

meeting with Rubens in February 1631 and,

thus, like his monument, dating from this

discussion.

NOTES

1. 233 X 190 mm, brown wash with white highlights and traces of red chalk. Inv. RF 2383 (Fl. 1019). See

Rubens, ses maitres, ses Hives: dessins du Muste du

Louvre (Paris: Musde du Louvre, 10 fev.-15 mai 1978),

pp. 46-47, n. 27; Anvers, ville de Plantin et de Rubens

(Paris: Bibliothfeque Nationale, 1954), n. 421. Also see

F. Lugt, ed., Paris, Musie du Louvre: Inventaireginiral des dessins des kcoles du nord (Paris: Ed. des Biblio.

Nat. de France, 1949), II, p. 15, n. 1019, pi. xx.

Two copies of the drawing have been identified.

That in the Kupferstichtkabinett, Berlin (inv. 3901), measures 253 X 189 mm and is in black and red chalk

with wash and white highlights: see Elfried Bock and

Jakob Rosenberg, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupfer stichtkabinett: Die Niederlandischen Meister (Berlin:

Bard, 1930), I, p. 256, n. 3901 (no illustration), and

H. Mielke and M. Winner, Peter Paul Rubens: Kritischer

Katalog der Zeichnungen, Originale, Umkreis, Kopien

(Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz,

1977), 69 Kop., 134-135. Winner mentions Ophovius's visit to Rubens to discuss his monument, a point raised later in this paper, but does not associate it with

the Louvre portrait or with its copies. A second copy, 290 X 192 mm, black and red chalk,

and brown ink with some corrections in white, is in

the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam

(inv. V87): see Louvre (1978), p. 47; and Mielke and

Winner, under nr. 69 Kop. Lugt noted that this copy was inferior and identified it with that mentioned in

M. Rooses, L'Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens, 5 vols. (Ant

werp: J. Maes, 1886-1892), V, pp. 269-270.

2. The son of a cloth merchant from 's Hertogen

bosch, Ophovius entered the Dominican order in 1585

at St. Paul's. Following his studies at the universities

of Louvain and Bologna, he returned to Antwerp and

assumed the position of prior, an office he was to hold

on three more occasions. Ophovius was arrested in the

Netherlands in 1623 while on a mission to the Catho

lics of the North and was subsequently held prisoner in Den Haag for eighteen months. Named bishop of

's Hertogenbosch by Archduchess Isabella in 1626, he

was forced to flee the city in 1629 when it was taken

by Frederik Hendrik of Orange. Ophovius spent the

next years in Antwerp and in Lier, dying there on

4 Nov. 1637. His body was brought to St. Paul's for

burial, and his funeral was celebrated there on 5 Jan.

1638.

3. Louvre (1978), p. 47.

4. M. Rooses, "Rubens en Ophovius," Rubens Bul

letijn 3 (1900): 161—163; and A. Frenken, "Het Dag boek van Michael Ophovius, 4 augustus-einde 1631," Bossche Bijdragen 15 (March 1938): 183.

5. C. Lawrence, "The Ophovius Madonna: A Newly discovered Work by Jan Claudius De Cock," Jaarboek,

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen

(1986): 273—293.

6. C. Lawrence, "Rubens and the Monument of

Bishop Michael Ophovius: A New Work by Hans van

Mildert," Burlington Magazine (forthcoming). 7. Canvas, 111.5 X 82.5 cm. See Mauritshuis, the

Royal Cabinet of Paintings: Illustrated General Cata

logue (The Hague: Government Publishing Office,

1977), nn. 252, 206.

8. For example, that formerly in the F. Koenigs Col

lection: see the exhibition catalogue Catalogue der

Rubens Tentoonstelling (Amsterdam: Goudstikker,

Aug.-Sept. 1933), n. 46.

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