The Honeysuckle Bower by Peter Paul Rubens vintage print

The Honeysuckle Bower by Peter Paul Rubens

Vintage print.
The double portrait of Rubens and Isabella Brant in Honeysuckle Bower, or "The Honeysuckle Bower" for short, is a Baroque oil painting by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, created around 1609. It depicts the artist and his fiancée Isabella Brant (1591–1626) sitting almost outdoors together as a loving couple. The 179 × 136.5 cm painting created near Antwerp is painted in oil on canvas and mounted on oak.

Rubens probably painted the painting as a wedding present for his mother-in-law, a patrician from Antwerp. The wedding took place on October 3, 1609 in St. Michael's Church in Antwerp, Brant was Rubens' first wife.

The picture with no. to invent. 334 is located in Alte Pinakothek in Munich in the Rubens Hall (Room VII) on the 1st floor, as part of the permanent exhibition.

In the bourgeoisie of that time, the portrait of the husband was common only as a portrait in the bust, more often as a diptych (image painted in two parts). Portraits of full or half couples were rare. It is one of the many self-portraits of the painter, also of his second wife Hélène Fourment, from 1630 he painted married portraits (as well as portraits). The work, which was created at a high point in his career, is considered one of the most representative of the art of European portraiture.