The Holy Kinship

Frans Francken (II), 1616

Allegorie op het Christuskind als het lam Gods. De verering van Maria en het kind. Interieur met twee vrouwen met kinderen zittend bij een tafel voor een wand waarop geschilderd een grote religieuze allegorische voorstelling: in het midden zit Maria met het Christuskind, Johannes de Doper als kind en de heilige Anna, op de voorgrond het Lam Gods. Rechts een zittende bisschop met een boek, daarachter discipelen.. Boven deze groep vliegt de duif van de Heilige Geest. Op de tafel een Oosters kleed, een boek en een boeket bloemen in een vaas.

  • Artwork typepainting
  • Object numberSK-A-111
  • Dimensionsouter size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame), support: height 42.1 cm x width 33.3 cm x thickness 1 cm (support incl. backboard)
  • Physical characteristicsoil on copper

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Frans Francken (II), 1591 - 1642

Groepje filosofen of schriftgeleerden bij een tafel met boeken

Frans Francken (II)

The Holy Kinship

1616

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom centre, on the step:D.M f.francken. IN. f / Aº 1616
  • inscription, centre, on the scroll round the reed cross held by the Infant St John the Baptist:ECCE ANGNUS [sic] DEI
  • inscription, indistinct, top edge right, in white paint:9[..]0

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype / L. Nijkamp, RMA, 12 oktober 2006

Provenance

…; ? collection Hendrik van Heteren (1672-1749), The Hague;1T.L.J. Verroen, ‘‘Een verstandig ryk Man’: de achttiende-eeuwse verzamelaar Adriaan Leonard Van Heteren’, in C. Scheffer (ed.) et al., Achttiende-eeuwse kunst in de Nederlanden, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 4 (1985), pp. 17-61, esp. p. 17; but see his note 8, p. 58. his son, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague, (‘De Heilige Familie, vol beelden en bywerk door Francisco Franken, h. 16 en een vierde d., br. 12 en drie vierde d. [42.4 x 33.3 cm] K.’);2‘Catalogus van Schilderyen, In’t Kabinet van den Heer Bewindhebber, Adriaen Leonard van Heteren in’s Hage’, in G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver Pryzen Zedert een langen reeks van Jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere Plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt. Benevens een Verzamelingvan Lysten van Verscheyden nog in wezen zynde Cabinetten , 3 vols., The Hague 1752-70, II, p. 454. his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam, (‘François Francken. Ce tableau représente la Sainte Famille avec beaucoup figures d’autres, cuivre, h. 16 l. 12½ [41.8 x 32.7 cm]’);3‘Catalogue Raisonné d’une Collection de Tableaux appartenant à Monsieur A.L. Gevers, Page de Leurs Majestés le Roi et la Reine de Hollande’, s.l. 1808, transcribed in E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en Het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, pp. 145-51, esp. p. 146, no. 30. from whom, with 136 other paintings en bloc (known as the ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Lodewijk Napoleon, King of Holland and through the mediation of his father Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 18094T.L.J. Verroen, ‘‘Een verstandig ryk Man’: de achttiende-eeuwse verzamelaar Adriaan Leonard Van Heteren’, in C. Scheffer (ed.) et al., Achttiende-eeuwse kunst in de Nederlanden, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 4 (1985), pp. 17-61, esp. p. 58, notes 2, 3.

Object number: SK-A-111

The artist

Biography

Frans Francken II (Antwerp 1581 - Antwerp 1642)

The successful, chiefly small-scale figure painter, Frans Francken II, the son of his homonymous father and Elisabeth Mertens, was baptized in the Antwerp Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk on 6 May 1581. A member of an extended family of painters, of which his father was the most prominent, Frans was probably taught in the parental home. An inventory of his father’s estate, drawn up in 1617, the year following his death, is suggestive of the works of art – both paintings and prints – that could have been available to the young student.5E. Duverger, Fontes historiae Artis Neerlandicae Bronnen voor de Kunstgeschiedenis van de Nederlanden: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 13 vols., Brussels 1984-2004, I, pp. 389-94. He may also have spent time with his uncles Ambrosius and Hieronymus, the latter being then active in Paris (see biography under SK-C-286). But Frans is not thought to have visited Italy (as was earlier believed) before he became a master – aged twenty-five – in the Antwerp guild in 1605/06. He was made dean of the guild ten years later.

His earliest work is estimated to have been executed circa 1600. He would have begun to work on his own account after he became a master; and he bought his first house and married in 1607. His extended family may have provided assistance until he could turn to his children to maintain his production, for he is known to have taken on only one apprentice – in 1617 – who was then nearly fourteen years old and became a master in 1625/26.6P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76, I, p. 530 and note 2. His fluent, calligraphic handling on either oak or copper supports seems to have been developed to sustain a speedy and effective means of production.

Indeed Francken was to prove both prolific and highly inventive. The catalogue of his painted oeuvre by Härting consists in over 470 entries. He made popular such themes as The Witches’ Sabbath, The Seven Acts of Mercy, The Israelites after the Crossing of the Red Sea and triumphs with sea gods.

He was also a popular collaborator providing figures in landscapes by Abraham Govaerts (1589-1626), Alexander Keirincx (1600-1652), Joos de Momper II (1564-1634/35), Johannes Tilens (1589-1630) and Tobias Verhaecht (c. 1560-1631), in interiors by Bartholomeus van Bassen (c. 1590-1652), Peeter Neeffs I (c. 1578-1656/61), Hendrik van Steenwyck II (c. 1580-1649) and Paul Vredeman de Vries (1567-after 1630).

Apart from contributing to the Mysteries of the Rosary series in the Antwerp Dominican Church circa 1617, Francken seems to have remained at a distance from Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and the projects with which he was involved with his Antwerp colleagues. But recognition by his contemporaries was vouchsafed by the likely presence of one of his paintings in Willem van Haecht’s Art Cabinet of Cornelis van der Geest of 1628,7A. van Suchtelen and B. van Beneden, Room for Art in Seventeenth-Century Antwerp, exh. cat. Antwerp (Rubenshuis)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2009-10, pp. 128-29, no. 17. and his portrait’s inclusion in Anthony van Dyck’s Iconography.8S. Turner and C. Depauw, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Anthony van Dyck, 8 vols., Rotterdam 2002, I, no. 5 and II, no. 62. Cornelis de Bie was to be lavish in his praise of his art in Het gulden cabinet of 1662.9C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermartste schilders, architecte, beldtowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuwe, Antwerp s.a. (1662), p. 101.

Francken died in his house Sint Marcus, which he had bought in 1616, on 6 May 1642, and was buried in the Sint-Andrieskerk. His widow died in 1655; their eldest son, Frans III, continued the Francken practice in the house until her death (see biography under BK-NM-4190).

REFERENCES
U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1989

Entry

There is no reason to doubt Frans Francken II’s execution of the present work which is signed and dated 1616. The carpet was painted after the support was framed as it runs to a margin at the edge.

The form of the signature is exceptional and does not recur in Francken’s extant oeuvre. As interpreted by McGrath,10Private communication. Other less convincing interpretations are that DM is an abbreviation for ‘DOMINUS’ (master), or De Meester (the master); in these cases the name that follows would be that of the painter of the picture, and the ‘f’ would stand for ‘fecit’ (made (it)). it may designate the painting as a tribute by the artist to his homonymous father (b. 1542), who died on 3 October 1616. The initials DM11Härting questions whether the ‘M’ is not an ‘H’, see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1989, no. 360. may well repeat those found on Roman funerary monuments, where they stand for ‘Dis Manibus’, which can be translated as ‘to the shades of the departed’ (or more loosely, ‘to the spirits of the dead’), and precede the name of the deceased. If such is the case, the name that follows in the inscription refers not to the painter of the picture, but to this father, and the initial ‘f’, which follows ‘invenit’, would stand not for ‘fecit’ but ‘filius’, that is the son, Frans Francken II, who invented the composition.

This picture, with its use of powdered gold to mark the radiance of the key figures, is Francken’s only extant treatment of the Holy Kinship. Whether it had a particular relevance to Frans Francken I, or even to the numerous clan of Francken artists,12Indicated by the fragment of a group portrait showing Frans Francken III and Hieronymus Francken III by Cornelis de Vos; see K. van der Stighelen, De portretten van Cornelis de Vos (1584/5-1651). Een kritische catalogus, Brussels 1990, no. 2. has yet to be ascertained. It would be overambitious to seek to identify the likeness of Frans Francken I among the male relations of Christ; most obvious would be to identify him with the seated figure, but a comparison with Francken’s known appearance is not compelling.13Cf. Rubens’s portrait of him at Montpellier (Musée Fabre), H. Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XIX (2): Portraits of Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp, London 1987, no. 105.

Depictions of the Holy Kinship had been a speciality of Netherlandish and northern German artists, but then declined in popularity following the Council of Trent’s rejection of the legend of St Anne’s three marriages in the mid-sixteenth century.14L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, III (3), pp. 143-46.

The subject of the present painting was identified by Esser and published by Härting, who also retained the title proposed in the 1976 museum catalogue – Allegory on the Christ Child as the Lamb of God – which had probably been prompted by the central position of the lamb. But the animal is not depicted here as a symbol of Christ’s passion, as it is, for example, in the Van Eyck brothers’ Ghent altarpiece (completed in 1432).15M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, 14 vols., Leiden 1967-76, I, pls. 1, 6, 7. Francken was probably following the example of Maerten de Vos (1532-1603) in his two, extant treatments of the Holy Kinship,16A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Antwerpener Malerei in der zweiten Hälfte de 16. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1980, nos. 69, 78. in which the lamb, an attribute of St John the Baptist, was prominently and conspicuously placed.

Including his great-grandparents, Jesus had twenty-five named relations. This tally does not include his two parents and an unidentified uncle.17Paul Taylor, Warburg Institute, kindly made available his unpublished adaptation of A. Horton, The Child Christ, 1975, modifying also L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, II (2), 1957, pp. 142-43. Following the vision of St Colette, an abbess in Ghent, in 1406, which popularized the cult of St Anne,18L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, II (2), p. 141. no set formula seems to have evolved as to how many relations should be depicted; for instance Quinten Massijs’s (1466-1530) altarpiece of 1509 in the Brussels Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België included twelve,19L. Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys: With Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford 1984, pp. 201-04, no. 10 (commissioned in 1507). while Lucas Cranach I’s (1472-1553) triptych of 1507 in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, showed fourteen.20B. Brinkmann (ed.), Cranach der Ältere, exh. cat. Frankfurt am Main (Städel Museum)/London (Royal Academy) 2007-08, no. 19. Assuming that St Joseph is one of the men in the right background, Francken here introduces seventeen. Unusual is the segregated assemblage: on either side of the central group of Mary, Jesus, his grandmother St Anne and cousin St John the Baptist, are women and children on one side, and men, obscurely placed in the background, on the other. A second unusual feature is the seated figure in an ermine cape whose status as a bishop is indicated by the mitre on the ledge above. Notable too is the presence of the dove, above, symbolizing the Holy Ghost.

The bishop may be identified as Zacharias, the father of St John the Baptist, who was a high priest. The man with his hands clasped in prayer may be St Joseph, because of his proximity to Mary and Jesus. It is not possible to suggest identifications for the other relations, because Jesus had four aunts and eight cousins, and Francken depicts, not counting Mary and St Anne, five women and five children. The reason for this discrepancy is obscure.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1989, no. 360

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 24, no. 94; 1864, p. 44, no. 90; 1872, p. 47, no. 94 (as the Adoration of Mary and the Infant Jesus, the gift of Baron van Spaen van Biljoen, 1808); 1880, pp. 402-03, no. 472; 1904, p 121, no. 936; 1976, p. 231, no. A 111

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Frans (II) Francken, The Holy Kinship, 1616', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027888

(accessed 7 December 2025 13:37:35).

Footnotes

  • 1T.L.J. Verroen, ‘‘Een verstandig ryk Man’: de achttiende-eeuwse verzamelaar Adriaan Leonard Van Heteren’, in C. Scheffer (ed.) et al., Achttiende-eeuwse kunst in de Nederlanden, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 4 (1985), pp. 17-61, esp. p. 17; but see his note 8, p. 58.
  • 2‘Catalogus van Schilderyen, In’t Kabinet van den Heer Bewindhebber, Adriaen Leonard van Heteren in’s Hage’, in G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver Pryzen Zedert een langen reeks van Jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere Plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt. Benevens een Verzamelingvan Lysten van Verscheyden nog in wezen zynde Cabinetten , 3 vols., The Hague 1752-70, II, p. 454.
  • 3‘Catalogue Raisonné d’une Collection de Tableaux appartenant à Monsieur A.L. Gevers, Page de Leurs Majestés le Roi et la Reine de Hollande’, s.l. 1808, transcribed in E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en Het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, pp. 145-51, esp. p. 146, no. 30.
  • 4T.L.J. Verroen, ‘‘Een verstandig ryk Man’: de achttiende-eeuwse verzamelaar Adriaan Leonard Van Heteren’, in C. Scheffer (ed.) et al., Achttiende-eeuwse kunst in de Nederlanden, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 4 (1985), pp. 17-61, esp. p. 58, notes 2, 3.
  • 5E. Duverger, Fontes historiae Artis Neerlandicae Bronnen voor de Kunstgeschiedenis van de Nederlanden: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 13 vols., Brussels 1984-2004, I, pp. 389-94.
  • 6P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76, I, p. 530 and note 2.
  • 7A. van Suchtelen and B. van Beneden, Room for Art in Seventeenth-Century Antwerp, exh. cat. Antwerp (Rubenshuis)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2009-10, pp. 128-29, no. 17.
  • 8S. Turner and C. Depauw, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Anthony van Dyck, 8 vols., Rotterdam 2002, I, no. 5 and II, no. 62.
  • 9C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermartste schilders, architecte, beldtowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuwe, Antwerp s.a. (1662), p. 101.
  • 10Private communication. Other less convincing interpretations are that DM is an abbreviation for ‘DOMINUS’ (master), or De Meester (the master); in these cases the name that follows would be that of the painter of the picture, and the ‘f’ would stand for ‘fecit’ (made (it)).
  • 11Härting questions whether the ‘M’ is not an ‘H’, see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1989, no. 360.
  • 12Indicated by the fragment of a group portrait showing Frans Francken III and Hieronymus Francken III by Cornelis de Vos; see K. van der Stighelen, De portretten van Cornelis de Vos (1584/5-1651). Een kritische catalogus, Brussels 1990, no. 2.
  • 13Cf. Rubens’s portrait of him at Montpellier (Musée Fabre), H. Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XIX (2): Portraits of Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp, London 1987, no. 105.
  • 14L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, III (3), pp. 143-46.
  • 15M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, 14 vols., Leiden 1967-76, I, pls. 1, 6, 7.
  • 16A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Antwerpener Malerei in der zweiten Hälfte de 16. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1980, nos. 69, 78.
  • 17Paul Taylor, Warburg Institute, kindly made available his unpublished adaptation of A. Horton, The Child Christ, 1975, modifying also L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, II (2), 1957, pp. 142-43.
  • 18L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols., Paris 1955-59, II (2), p. 141.
  • 19L. Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys: With Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford 1984, pp. 201-04, no. 10 (commissioned in 1507).
  • 20B. Brinkmann (ed.), Cranach der Ältere, exh. cat. Frankfurt am Main (Städel Museum)/London (Royal Academy) 2007-08, no. 19.