1569 -1622 · Court portrait between Brussels, Mantua and Paris

Impassive faces, sumptuous fabrics, sovereign silhouettes and heraldic precision define the court art of Frans II Pourbus.

Frans Pourbus the Younger was born in Antwerp in 1569 into a family of portrait painters: his father Frans the Elder and his grandfather Pieter Pourbus transmitted to him a technique attentive to the face, costume and social rank. Received master at the guild of Saint-Luc in 1591, he soon worked for the archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels. His career became European when he joined the court of Mantua, where Duke Vincent I Gonzaga employed him from 1600. He traveled to Italy and executed diplomatic portraits whose resemblance, dignity and textile wealth also served dynastic politics. In 1609, Pourbus settled in Paris and became painter to Marie de Medici. His effigies of Henry IV, the queen, Louis XIII as a child, magistrates and great servants of the State fix the official image of the French monarchy on the threshold of the Grand Siècle. The model is often presented from the front or in three quarters, in a regular light which describes lace, jewelry, armor and velvet without dissolving the psychological presence. Pourbus also creates religious paintings, notably The Last Supper and Saint Francis receiving the stigmata. Died in Paris in 1622, he constitutes a decisive link between the Flemish tradition of portraiture and the ceremonial representation of European courts. The "Frans II Pourbus" selection notably compares Marie de Medici and La Holy Supper. Its reading favors movement.

Pourbus paints power as a material: face, velvet, lace and jewelry participate in the same architecture of dignity.