The Mentor: The Wife in Art, Vol. 1, Num. 28, Serial No. 28

Filippo and Lucrezia Buti

The name of the novice was Lucrezia Buti, and, struck by the grace and beauty of this young woman, the artist begged that she might be allowed to pose for him for the picture, and the request was granted. It may indeed have been diplomacy on the part of the abbess; for it is not unlikely that Lucrezia, who had no vocation whatsoever for conventual life, had proved herself refractory, and that the convent authorities saw a chance of getting rid of her, which they could not do by returning her to her family, because she had been consigned to them against her will by a stepbrother, anxious to get rid of her care and expense. In any event, the friar Lippi fell in love with her and she with him. Profiting by the crowd and confusion attendant on the festival of the Madonna of the Girdle, which is celebrated in Prato on the first of May, Fra Filippo carried off Lucrezia, appealed to his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, and through the latter’s intercession received from the Pope, Pius II., a special brief, absolving both himself and the novice from their ecclesiastical vows and granting them dispensation to marry. He and Lucrezia had two children; their son, Filippino Lippi, more than rivaling his father’s fame as a painter. The Madonna that Fra Filippo painted for the convent may still be seen in Prato, and there are other pictures in which Lucrezia’s lovely face is discernible.

_In Windsor Castle, England._]

Rubens was so happy with his first wife, Isabella Brandt, who died after eighteen years of blissful married life with him, that he could not endure the loneliness of being a widower, but four years after Isabella’s death took as his second wife Helena Fourment. This marriage proved to be as happy as the first; although he was already fifty-three and she barely sixteen. Their union was blessed with five handsome children; so that his declining years found him surrounded by youth and beauty, and with a splendid young wife as comrade.

_A portrait of the artist’s second wife and two of their children, hanging in the Louvre, Paris._]

During the eighteen years of his first marriage Isabella appeared in nearly all his large pictures. She was of a more refined type than Helena; so that, with his second marriage, when he began to introduce his second wife into his pictures, his style becomes broader and more vigorous. For Helena had a strong, fully developed figure of pronounced contour, rosy flesh tints, golden hair, and lips that seemed always partly open to show the flash of pure white teeth. These were her attractions. She was obviously more beautiful, more brilliant, than Isabella, although in her youth her development was somewhat too luxuriant,--a picture of healthy, bursting, buoyant young womanhood. Indeed, so proud does Rubens seem of having, at his age, won a woman of her pronounced and youthful charms, that in some of his pictures he expresses them too freely, as, for example, in the Helena in a fur pelisse in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna. That Rubens drew a vast amount of inspiration from his two wives, Isabella and Helena, is obvious to anyone familiar with his work; for they appear in picture after picture from his brush. His married life, first with Isabella and then with Helena, was a constant stimulus to his best work.

Rembrandt and Saskia

Rembrandt, too, was married twice, and although his first wife was refined and aristocratic and his second far from it, having been a servant in his household, he was intensely happy with both and painted them many times. Saskia van Ulenburg, although not strictly speaking a beauty from the casual point of view, lent herself admirably, nevertheless, to pictorial treatment, especially that pictorial treatment of lights and deep shadows of which her husband was the greatest master that ever lived. Indeed, the pictures in which she appears are almost too numerous to mention. There is the delightful portrait of her in the gallery at Cassel, said to have been painted in her own home in 1633, the year before she and Rembrandt were married. Her face in profile, the features delicately delineated, is shown against a background of deep, rich colors. With the lightest touch her wavy chestnut hair lies upon her cheek and forehead. A spray of rosemary in her hand rests across her heart. This, the emblem of a Dutch maiden’s betrothal, tells its own story.

_In the Royal Gallery, Berlin._]

Probably, however, the most famous portrait ever painted of an artist and his wife is that by Rembrandt in the Dresden Gallery, of Saskia seated on his knees while he clasps her waist with his left hand and raises in his right a half-filled glass. The joy on their faces gives witness to the pride and pleasure they found in each other. Saskia was a wealthy woman, and while she lived want never entered Rembrandt’s house. But, alas! she was delicate, and died in 1642, less than a year after giving birth to the son who was christened Titus. Rembrandt had spent much money in filling his house with objects of art,--prints, rich stuffs for costumes, and other things--and not long after Saskia’s death he found himself impoverished. Some idea of the richness of his collections is obtained from the adornments with which Saskia appears in the picture known as the “Jewish Bride,” and in the genre portrait, “Minerve,” in which she is shown as a learned lady in the richest of costumes, seated at a beautiful table and reading from an ancient tome.

Rembrandt ranks with the greatest masters in art. “He rides fastest who rides alone.” Is it possible that Rembrandt could have ridden faster or reached a farther goal without Saskia and Hendrikje?

Van Dyck, the favorite pupil of Rubens,--so much so that when some romping pupils in Rubens’ absence brushed against a partly finished picture and marred it he was asked to retouch it in order that the master might not notice the defect,--also was a favorite in the world of women, and much influenced by them. Even in youth a love adventure is said to have sent him from Rubens’ atelier to Italy. In England, where no one is more closely identified than he with the period of Charles I., “_die schönen_ ladies,” as a German writer on Van Dyck expresses it, fairly fought for the honor of being painted by him.

If his works lack the vital vigor and joyous abandon of the typical Flemish masters, it must be remembered that his Italian sojourn, passed largely in court circles, greatly refined his style, and that he, the painter of aristocrats, is also an aristocrat among painters. His output for his short life (1599-1641) was great, and of the 1,500 works catalogued as his 300 are portraits of women. Walpole speaks of their beautiful hands. But Van Dyck had special models for the hands, for those of both the men and the women. The elegance and refinement of his work is, however, undoubted, and, though he lacks the power of a Rembrandt and the tremendous verve of a Rubens, much of his work (within the limitations imposed by elegance) is executed in the “large” manner.

It is said that his ability to accomplish so much was due to the fact that he never allowed a sitter to weary him, obviating this by dismissing them at the end of an hour. At the time appointed for the sitting the artist appeared in his studio. At the end of the hour he rose, made his obeisance, and appointed the hour for the next sitting. A servant cleaned the brushes and reloaded the palette, while the artist received and entertained the next sitter. He had many love affairs in England, and especially one with Margaret Lemon, who threatened, when his love began to cool, to cut off his hand. The world is the richer by a beautiful portrait for this love affair, and fortunately, instead of cutting off his hand or even attempting to, Margaret went to Holland with friends. Van Dyck’s gay life, however, seriously alarmed the king, who, being genuinely attached to him and also admiring his art, feared for his health. Accordingly, his Majesty chose for him a wife, a beautiful young woman, Maria Ruthven, daughter of Lord Ruthven. Van Dyck painted her several times, and one of his best known portraits is that of her with her violoncello, which is in the old Pinakothek (pin´-a-ko-thek), Munich. His married life seems to have been happy, though brief. He died within two years of his nuptials, leaving us the portraits of Maria as souvenirs of his happiness.