page_title: Frans Pourbus the Elder
section_title: Portraits
hierarchical_section_title: Frans Pourbus the Elder / Work / Portraits
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of an unknown man
context_page_description: Frans Pourbus the Elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter who is known primarily for his portraits and religious compositions, as well as a few genre scenes. He was the son of the prominent Bruges painter and cartographer Pieter Pourbus and the father of Frans Pourbus the Younger who became an international portraitist of the European ruling class.
context_section_description: During Pourbus' lifetime a number of portrait painters were active in the Habsburg Netherlands.  Because of the similarities in style, the works of Pourbus and his near contemporaries Mor and Adriaen Thomasz. Key are regularly misattributed to each other.
  Most of the sitters for Pourbus' portraits were from the rising middle class.  He also painted portraits of the higher clergy, some local aristocrats and a few foreign dignitaries.  Not many of the sitters have been identified with certainty.  Works with identified sitters include the portrait of Viglius van Aytta, a Dutch statesman and jurist, and the portrait of Abraham Grapheus. There are some differences of view among art historians about the identification of some of the sitters.
  In his portraits Frans Pourbus demonstrates an acute power of observation and psychological insight. This is evidenced in the Portrait of an unknown man (At Galerie Lowet de Wotrenge).  The features of the man in this portrait are highly individualized through the subtle modelling of the face, flesh, cheekbones, nose and eyes. His neatly trimmed beard is rendered with remarkable precision and is set off by his closely concertinaed ruff.  The sitter engages the viewer directly with his gaze and his slightly frowned brow gives him a contemplative aspect.  The portrait demonstrates Pourbus' mastery in giving a psychological insight into his sitters. Pourbus' success as a portrait painter can probably also be attributed to his in depicting the accoutrements of wealth in his sitters.
  Pourbus also painted family portraits, of which at least two have been preserved.  One represents the Hoefnagel family (c. 1580, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium).  It shows the principal members of the prominent Antwerp family Hoefnagel, which included the prominent painter Joris Hoefnagel, around a table.  The work is believed to represent the wedding of Balthasar Hoefnagel and Anna van Lieffelt.  The family portrait was commissioned by Balthasar Hoefnagel (before 1554-1608), which explains the initials 'BH' near the spinet on the table.  It is plausible that the family portrait is related to a marriage of Balthasar and Anna van Lieffelt, who can be recognized on the left of the panel as the bride and groom. For this occasion Balthasar also commissioned from Pourbus two additional portraits of himself and his wife, which were still unpaid to Pourbus at the time of his death, according to a record of his estate. The family portrait of the Hoefnagel family depicts twenty people in a genre-like composition arranged around a table.  As far as the family composition can be determined at the time the painting was made, it can be deduced that Balthasar had three brothers: Joris, Melchior and Daniël and four sisters: Elizabeth, Margareta, Suzanna and Catharina.  Suzanna is the girl with the parrot and the boy on her lap. Pourbus included on the left side a portrait of himself holding a lute in his hand.  The elegant clothing of the family members expresses their important social status. The scene was painted in a soft style, which shows the influence of Frans Floris.
caption: Portrait of an unknown man
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "50", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2065", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2858"}