Deborah Kip, Wife of Sir Balthasar Gerbier, and Her Children

1629/1630, reworked probably mid 1640s

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Associated Names
Sir Peter Paul Rubens
Painter, Flemish, 1577 - 1640
Jacob Jordaens
Painter, Flemish, 1593 - 1678
A seated woman with an infant on her lap and three children are clustered on a terrace overlooking green hills and a body of water in this square painting. They all have pale skin with flushed cheeks. The group is centered in the composition, and the woman sits to our left, facing our right, almost in profile. The wooden chair is upholstered in scarlet-red fabric and a large slate-blue bird perches on the backrest. Gold-edged, red drapery hangs behind the woman, suspended from stone columns on either side of her. The woman’s brown hair is covered by a frilly, silvery-gray cap with a matching shawl layered over a short, three-quarter sleeve jacket. Her fern-green skirt, covered with a pattern of coral-red flowers and gold vines, gleams in the soft light coming from behind us. A thin black band encircles her neck, and a round, black earring dangles from the ear we can see. She bows her head slightly and gazes down at the children. The infant lies across her lap with its head coming toward us, its chubby arms reaching up to the woman while turning to look at the three standing children. They appear to be a young boy and two girls, and they all have blond hair, large brown eyes, and delicate rose-red mouths. They crowd together at the woman’s knees. The boy is taller than the girls and stands behind them, visible from the shoulders up. He is dressed in red garments and stands almost in profile to gaze up at the woman. The girls turn their heads to look directly at us. At the center of the trio, the taller girl wears a long, voluminous brown gown. Her hair is pulled back and long ringlets frame her face. She also wears round black earrings and two delicate black cords around her neck, one of which holds a gold ring. At the front, the shortest girl wears a black and white gown with a sheer neckerchief along neckline, and she rests one arm across the woman’s lap. The girl’s long, puffy, black sleeves are slashed to create openings for white fabric to show through. Her hair is also upswept with ringlets framing her face. To the right of the group is a column made of two creatures with pink female heads, faces, and nude torsos with scaly, olive-green, twisting, snake-like legs. One creature faces us and the other faces our right. The sky beyond the terrace is filled with clouds that transition from slate gray at the top to tan and rust orange where it meets the distant hills.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) was one of the greatest masters of the 17th century and a man of great integrity, probity, and discretion. The growth of his international artistic reputation was paralleled by his increased involvement in European politics. During the 1620s, Rubens was entrusted with delicate diplomatic missions at the behest of the Archduchess Isabella, the regent who governed the Spanish Netherlands for the King of Spain, Philip IV, which could be accomplished under the cover of his activities as an artist.

Rubens's most important diplomatic venture occurred in 1627, in the middle of the Thirty Years' War, when he traveled to Spain in an effort to bring about a peaceful resolution to the ongoing hostilities that had seriously affected the Netherlands. He was received by Philip IV, and then sent to London as an emissary of the king. In London, he stayed for several months with his friend Balthasar Gerbier and his family in their living quarters along the Thames. Rubens may have conceived of the portrait of Gerbier's wife Deborah Kip, the daughter of a well-to-do member of London's Dutch community, as a potential gift in gratitude for the couple's hospitality or as a souvenir for himself.

Deborah Kip and four of her children are shown on a terrace elaborately appointed with entwined caryatids that support a bower, a setting that points to the family's elevated status. Their prosperity is also evident in Deborah Kip's elegantly embroidered skirt and lustrous blouse and cap. Perched on her chair is a blue-gray parrot, a symbol of aristocratic wealth and an allusion in Christian art to the Virgin Mary, the perfect mother. As she holds the baby on her lap, son George holds back a curtain; Elizabeth, dressed entirely in black, is serene and composed; and Susan rests her arms on her mother's knee and returns our gaze. Despite the elegant setting and the bravura brushwork, Rubens controlled the composition so that the tender relationship between the mother and her children remains the focus.

Rubens initially painted the family group at the core of the composition on a vertical rectangular central piece of canvas, to which he—perhaps while still in England— added strips on all four sides in preparation for the almost square final composition. When Rubens returned to Antwerp in April 1630, he took the still-unfinished family portrait with him. The painting, which remained in his possession, was probably completed by Jacob Jordaens after Rubens's death in 1640. An expanded copy from the Rubens workshop, one that Balthasar Gerbier almost certainly commissioned for his personal collection, is in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

Around 1600, the young Rubens, who had been trained in classical ideals and philosophy, had traveled from Antwerp to Italy to experience firsthand its artistic traditions. He sought to understand not only antiquity and the Renaissance, including the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, but also contemporary artists such as Caravaggio. The inspiration he gained from this multifaceted exposure profoundly affected his own style of painting and became the foundation for his future work. Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1609, at the time of the Twelve Years' Truce, and became court painter to the regents in the Southern Netherlands, Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella. It was a period of peace and prosperity, and Rubens, who was devoutly Catholic, received many commissions for religious works, including large altarpieces. He established a large workshop and developed close working relationships with other important masters, including Anthony van Dyck. When Rubens travelled to Spain in 1627, he saw many great paintings by Titian, the 16th century Venetian master. Titian's softly luminous paintings greatly influenced Rubens's late style, particularly portraits, such as this remarkable painting of Deborah Kip and her children.

On View
West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M43

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 165.8 x 177.8 cm (65 1/4 x 70 in.)
    framed: 200.34 x 211.14 x 14.61 cm (78 7/8 x 83 1/8 x 5 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1971.18.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Hélène Fourment [1614-1673], widow of the artist, Antwerp, by 1646; possibly John Robartes, 1st earl of Radnor [1606-1685], Lord Privy Seal to Charles II, London; possibly by inheritance to his son, Charles Bodville Robartes, 2nd earl of Radnor [1660-1723], London; (his sale, at his residence, London, 22-29 April 1724, no. 86, as by Van Dyck);[1] Thomas Scawen, London;[2] (his sale, at his residence, London, 25-28 January 1743, no. 49, bought in, possibly by Mr. Borroughs, a relative of Thomas Scawen);[3] "A Gent of the Law"; Sampson Gideon, Esq. [1699-1762], Belvedere, Erith, Kent, before 1755;[4] by inheritance to his son, Sir Sampson Gideon [assumed surname Eardley in 1789], 1st and last baron Spalding [1745-1824], Belvedere; by inheritance to his daughter, Charlotte-Elizabeth, and her husband, Sir Culling Smith, 2nd bt. [1768-1829], Belvedere; by inheritance to their son, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, 3rd bt. [later Sir Culling Eardley Eardley, 1805-1863], Belvedere, and Bedwell Park, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 30 June 1860, no. 21, bought in);[5] by inheritance to his daughters, Frances Selena Eardley [Mrs. Culling Hanbury], Bedwell Park, and Isabella Maria Eardley [Mrs. William Henry Freemantle, d. 1901]; by inheritance, by 1927, to Colonel Francis E. Fremantle and Edward V.E. Fremantle, Esq.; purchased 5 August 1971 through (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London) by NGA.

[1] George Vertue witnessed the sale and recorded it in his correspondence. See Clovis Whitfield, "Balthasar Gerbier, Rubens, and George Vertue," Studies in the History of Art (1973): 25. Whitfield also notes that the painting may have been in the collection of the 11th earl of Radnor who, according to Samuel Pepys (diary reference 30 September 1661), had "two very fine pictures in the gallery" of his residence, Danvers House, in Chelsea, London.

[2] George Vertue notes that Scawen bought the painting at the Radnor sale. See Whitfield 1973, 27.

[3] The painting was possibly bought in at the Scawen sale and then bought afterwards by a Mr. Burroughs. See Whitfield 1973, 25, and Michael Jaffé, "Rubens's Madame Gerbier and Her Children," in A Dealer's Record: Agnew's 1967-1981, London, 1981: 75.

[4] Recorded in the possession of Gideon by James McArdell, who made a mezzotint copy of the work in 1755. He reports seeing it at Belvedere, Gideon's house in Kent. See Whitfield 1973, and Jaffé 1981, 75, who misdates the mezzotint as 1735. Thomas B.M. Martyn, The English connoisseur: containing an account of whatever is curious in painting, sculpture, & c., in the palaces and the seats of the nobility and principal gentry of England, both in town and country, 2 vols., London, 1766: 1:13, lists the painting among those at Belvedere House as "A Dutch Woman and her three Children" by "Sir Ant. More."

[5] The painting was apparently bought in by a Mr. Ward, whom Jaffé feels was an assumed name. Despite the high price the painting realized at the sale the work remained with the family by inheritance until its purchase by the NGA. See Jaffé 1981, 75. Whitfield 1973, 26, mentions, but does not elaborate on the identity of Mr. Ward.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1859

  • Old Masters, British Institution, London, 1859, no. 46.

1862

  • Old Masters, British Institution, London, 1862, no. 113.

1902

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters including a Special Collection of Paintings and Drawings by Claude. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1902, no. 124.

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of Flemish & Belgian Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1927, no. 145.

1945

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Birmingham (England) Museum and Art Gallery, 1945-1951.

1992

  • From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Greece, Athens, 1992-1993, no. 7, repro.

2004

  • A House of Art: Rubens as Collector, Rubenshuis, Antwerp, 2004, no. 58, repro.

Bibliography

1973

  • Stechow, Wolfgang. "Peter Paul Rubens's Deborah Kip, Wife of Sir Balthasar Gerbier, and Her Children." Studies in the History of Art 5 (1973): 6-22, repro.

  • Buck, Richard D. "Rubens's The Gerbier Family: Examination and Treatment." Studies in the History of Art 5 (1973): 32-53, repro.

  • Feller, Robert L. "Rubens's The Gerbier Family: Technical Examination of the Pigments and Paint Layers." Studies in the History of Art v.5 (1973):54-74.

  • Whitfield, Clovis. "Balthasar Gerbier, Rubens, and George Vertue." Studies in the History of Art v.5 (1973):23-31.

  • Keisch, Bernard and Robert C. Callahan. "Rubens's The Gerbier Family: Investigation by Lead Isotope Mass Spectrometry." Studies in the History of Art v.5 (1973):75-78.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 316, repro.

1979

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 66, pl. 50.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 254, no. 323, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 362, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 52, repro.

1993

  • Powell, Earl A. III. "Foreword." Studies in the History of Art 41 (1993): 9.

2004

  • Boehrer, Bruce Thomas. Parrot Culture: Our 2,500-Year-Long Fascination with the World's Most Talkative Bird. Philadelphia, 2004: 73, 76, fig. 19.

2005

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 196-205, color repro.

2013

  • Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 226-227; 233, 235, 253.

2020

  • Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 139-140; 188 nt. 41.

Wikidata ID

Q20177090

You may be interested in

You may be interested in