Lucas Franchoys (II)

Portrait of François de Gand-Vilain (1647-1666), Bishop of Doornik

1651 - 1655

Inscriptions

  • coat of arms, top right: De sable au chef d’argent casque timbré d’une couronne murale
  • inscription, in Roman numerals, top right, on either side of the escutcheon:XIIII

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 13 oktober 2006
  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 3 september 2007

Provenance

...; sale, Jacques de Hooghe (†), Antwerp (Caudron and J.P.F. Ruggenberg), 14 June 1773 sqq., no. 11 (‘Le Portrait d’un Evêque, dans un fauteuil, sur bois avec L’Estampe. ayant pour titre: Ill mo ac Rmo Domino D. Francisco Villani à Gandavo, Baroni de Rassenghien, Episcopo Tornacensi &c., par Luc François pinxit, gravée par van Schuppen. [pies] 1 - [po.] 5 [pies] 1 - [po.] 0 [44.7 x 31.4 cm, with frame]’), bf 10;1Copy RKD....; from the heirs of Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Six van Vromade (1827-1905), Amsterdam, with 37 other pictures, fl. 751,000, to the Dutch Government with a contribution from the Rembrandt Society of fl. 200,000, 1907; presented to the museum, 1908; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 1999

ObjectNumber: SK-A-2323

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Biography

Lucas Franchoys II (Mechelen 1616 - Mechelen 1681)

The portrait and figure painter Lucas Franchoys II was born in Mechelen and baptized in the Sint-Romboutskathedraal on 28 June 1616. He was the second son of his homonymous father, also an artist, who is presumed to have taught him and his elder brother Peeter. His biographer Cornelis de Bie records Lucas as having been an apprentice of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640);2C. 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. 374. if such was the case his presence in Rubens’s studio must have been during the 1630s as he would only have been twelve when Rubens closed down his studio in 1628 for nearly two years during his absence abroad. De Bie also records that the artist worked in France at the court of the Prince de Condé (1621-1686); presumably this took place in the 1640s. By or rather before 1649 at the latest, he had returned to the southern Netherlands as his self-portrait was engraved by Coenraet Waumans (1619-after 1675), active in Antwerp, and published in that year;3Published in J. Meyssens, Image de divers hommes desprit sublime qui par leur art et science devraient vivre éternellement et desquels la louange et renommée faict estonner le monde, Antwerp 1649. the caption to the print described him as ‘a painter very skilful and famous for his large-scale compositions and portraits born in Mechelen’ (peintre tres expert et renommé en grand ordonnances et pourtraicts née à Malines). Indeed, he must have been already active in Doornik as his brother-in-law in Mechelen is recorded as having lent him money to travel there, and a wing of an altarpiece in the cathedral attributed to him is also dated to 1649. Hairs discusses further altarpieces in Doornik churches dated up to and after 1654 when the artist is recorded in his native city where he joined the guild of St Luke in 1655; he became its dean in 1663. In Mechelen he was favoured by the patronage of the archbishop who secured him a post in the cathedral chapter. His ecclesiastical practice continued to be extensive. He married in 1668 and had eight children. Franchoys died on 3 April 1681 and was buried the following day in the Sint-Janskerk. De Saligny has published an account of his oeuvre; Hairs has discussed it in greater detail.

REFERENCES
F. de Saligny, ‘Lucas Franchoys’, Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België 16 (1967), pp. 209-32; M.-L. Hairs, Dans le Sillage de Rubens, Liège 1977, 184-88

Entry

The sitter, François de Gand-Vilain, Baron of Rasenghiem, a member of an ancient and extended noble family of Brabant, was the second son of Jacques Philippe de Gand-Vilain, and succeeded his uncle Philippe-Maximilien, as Bishop of Doornik (Tournai), which post he held for nineteen years until his death at the end of 1666.4Iconographie ou Vies des Hommes Illustres du XVII. Siècle Ecrites par M. V.xx avec les Portraits Peints par le fameux Antoine Van Dyck … chez Arkstée & Merkus, 2 vols., Amsterdam/Leipzig 1759, pp. 63-64. The coat of arms is that of the de Gand-Vilain family.5J.-B. Rietstap, Armorial Générale, 2 vols., Gouda 1884-87, I, p. 739, under Gand dit Vilain. Lucas Franchoys II also painted full-length portraits of both men as pendants; these are still in the possession of the bishopric at Doornik.6H. Colsoul, Lucas Franchoys der Jüngere: 1616-1681 oeuvrecatalogus, 2 vols., Mechelen 1989-90, II, nos. 70, 71.

The family of de Gand-Vilain bore a numerical epithet XIIII, which appears twice on the escutcheon in the present picture. Two explanations have been advanced for it: that a member of the family obtained permission from Louis XIV to adopt it on his coat of arms as he was one of the party which offered him the keys of the city of Ghent.7L.G. Michaud, Biographie universelle (Michaud) ancienne et modern ou histoire, par ordre alphabétique, de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes qui se sont fait remarquer par leurs écrits, leurs actions, leurs talents, leurs virtus ou leurs crimes, 45 vols., Paris 1854-65 (new edition), XLIII, under Vilain XIIII and The National Gallery Report, London 1993-94, p. 12. This cannot have been the case, however, as Louis XIV’s campaigns in the southern Netherlands only began in 1657. Thus the explanation advanced by Goethals that it was a pun deriving from a family motto ‘verdien in hope’ appears to be more likely.8F.-V. Goethals, Dictionnaire généalogique et héraldique des familles nobles du royaume de Belgique, 4 vols., Brussels 1849-52, IV, pp. 993-94, and P. Bordes, Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile, exh. cat. Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum)/Williamstown (Mass.) (Sterling and Francine Clarke Art Institute) 2005, p. 298 under no. 47.

The present picture was the prototype for the print by Pierre Louis van Schuppen (1627-1702),9F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, XXVI, no. 140, where the surname is given as Villani. dedicated to the sitter by Franchoys. It measures 38.3 x 27.8 and can be fairly precisely dated between 1651 and 1655, as the sitter was elevated to the bishopric of Doornik in 1647,10Iconographie ou Vies des Hommes Illustres du XVII. Siècle Ecrites par M. V.xx avec les Portraits Peints par le fameux Antoine Van Dyck … chez Arkstée & Merkus, 2 vols., Amsterdam/Leipzig 1759, p. 64. while Franchoys was recorded as working there from 1649 and Van Schuppen, who became a master in the Antwerp guild in 1651, had left the southern Netherlands for Paris soon after 1651 or by 1655.11Von Wurzbach stated that Van Schuppen left for Paris soon after 1651, see A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, 3 vols., Leipzig/Vienna 1906-11, II, p. 588; Thieme and Becker stated he was there from 1655, see H. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 33 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXX, p. 343, as did Hollstein in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, XXVI, p. 67). The support of Baltic/Polish oak would have been ready for use from 1652. This is the only known example of collaboration between Franchoys and Van Schuppen. About contemporary, and perhaps an influence, is David Teniers II’s (1610-1690) modello for Paulus Pontius’s (1603-1658) engraving of the Portrait of Antoine Triest, Bishop of Ghent of 1652, with which the present work can be compared.12Klinge/Lüdtke in M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, p. 16, fig. 6 and p. 30, fig. 2.

How and why the print should have been so prominently included as the only fold-out in the 1759 edition of Anthony van Dyck’s Iconography, published by Arkstée and Merkus, in which only two or three others were interlopers, is a mystery, but one outside the scope of this entry.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

F. de Saligny, ‘Lucas Franchoys’, Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België 16 (1967), pp. 209-32, esp. p. 218, no. 10 and fig. 6; H. Colsoul, Lucas Franchoys der Jüngere: 1616-1681 oeuvrecatalogus, 2 vols., Mechelen 1989-90, no. 72 and figs. 135, 136

Collection catalogues

1908, p. 418, no. 939a (as Lucas Francois, François Villain de Gand); 1912, p. 355, no. 939a; 1921, p. 373, no. 939a; 1976, p. 230, no. A 2323 (as Lucas Franchoys II François Villain de Gand)

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Lucas (II) Franchoys, Portrait of François de Gand-Vilain (1647-1666), Bishop of Doornik, 1651 - 1655', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8438

(accessed 17 July 2025 21:43:34).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2C. 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. 374.
  • 3Published in J. Meyssens, Image de divers hommes desprit sublime qui par leur art et science devraient vivre éternellement et desquels la louange et renommée faict estonner le monde, Antwerp 1649.
  • 4Iconographie ou Vies des Hommes Illustres du XVII. Siècle Ecrites par M. V.xx avec les Portraits Peints par le fameux Antoine Van Dyck … chez Arkstée & Merkus, 2 vols., Amsterdam/Leipzig 1759, pp. 63-64.
  • 5J.-B. Rietstap, Armorial Générale, 2 vols., Gouda 1884-87, I, p. 739, under Gand dit Vilain.
  • 6H. Colsoul, Lucas Franchoys der Jüngere: 1616-1681 oeuvrecatalogus, 2 vols., Mechelen 1989-90, II, nos. 70, 71.
  • 7L.G. Michaud, Biographie universelle (Michaud) ancienne et modern ou histoire, par ordre alphabétique, de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes qui se sont fait remarquer par leurs écrits, leurs actions, leurs talents, leurs virtus ou leurs crimes, 45 vols., Paris 1854-65 (new edition), XLIII, under Vilain XIIII and The National Gallery Report, London 1993-94, p. 12.
  • 8F.-V. Goethals, Dictionnaire généalogique et héraldique des familles nobles du royaume de Belgique, 4 vols., Brussels 1849-52, IV, pp. 993-94, and P. Bordes, Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile, exh. cat. Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum)/Williamstown (Mass.) (Sterling and Francine Clarke Art Institute) 2005, p. 298 under no. 47.
  • 9F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, XXVI, no. 140, where the surname is given as Villani.
  • 10Iconographie ou Vies des Hommes Illustres du XVII. Siècle Ecrites par M. V.xx avec les Portraits Peints par le fameux Antoine Van Dyck … chez Arkstée & Merkus, 2 vols., Amsterdam/Leipzig 1759, p. 64.
  • 11Von Wurzbach stated that Van Schuppen left for Paris soon after 1651, see A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, 3 vols., Leipzig/Vienna 1906-11, II, p. 588; Thieme and Becker stated he was there from 1655, see H. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 33 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXX, p. 343, as did Hollstein in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, XXVI, p. 67).
  • 12Klinge/Lüdtke in M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, p. 16, fig. 6 and p. 30, fig. 2.