Het Pelsken
The Fur or The Pelt (Dutch: Het Pelsken; German: Das Pelzchen), also called The Little Fur Coat, is a 1638 portrait by Peter Paul Rubens of his second wife Helena Fourment getting out of her bath and wrapping her voluptuous body in a fur. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.[1]
History
According to art historian Louis Hourticq, Rubens was too much in love with his young wife to hesitate to celebrate her beauty. He surprised her one day on the way to her bath, and she yielded to her husband's fancy for painting her as she was. She would be quite naked but for the fur mantle thrown across her shoulders, which she holds in place with a charm in the painting.[2] A tradition reported by Emil Michel says that after Rubens died Madame Rubens hesitated to offer some of his pictures for sale, and a special clause in his will gave The Little Fur Coat to her.[3]
References
Sources
- Hourticq, Louis (1918). Rubens. Street, Frederick (trans.). New York: Duffield & Company. pp. 132, 135, 159
- "Helena Fourment ("Das Pelzchen")". Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
External links
- "The Fur ("Het Pelsken")". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
