Abraham Janssens

ABRAHAM JANSSENS (Antwerp, Belgium, ca. 1573 -1632).
"Sibyl."
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Presents inscription: "Casta tave dvcina tvvsðam regnat apollo".
Measurements: 114 x 82,5 cm.
Abraham Janssens demonstrates his exquisite technical ability in this portrait of three quarters of a woman. The sibyl is represented in a seated position, directing her gaze to a point outside the scene. The treatment of the lavish fabrics, accentuating their tactile values through fine gold threads and brocades, as well as her delicate gold necklace, is particularly noteworthy. Janssens presents the sibyl as a beautiful and elegant young woman, with her body slightly turned to avoid the rigidity of a strictly frontal composition, formally the figure is strongly illuminated and thus acquires a three-dimensional quality.
Abraham Janssens was a Flemish Baroque painter specializing in figure subjects, Abraham Janssens trained as a disciple of Jan Snellinck, and is documented as an apprentice in the Guild of St. Luke in his hometown in 1585. He later traveled to Italy between 1597 and 1602. The same year of his return he became a master member of the Antwerp Guild, and only five years later, in 1607, he became dean of that institution. In 1610 Janssens joined the Brotherhood of the Romanists, a society formed by humanists and artists who had made study trips to Rome. He had several disciples, among them his son Abraham Janssens II, Giovanni di Filippo del Campo, Gerard Seghers and Theodoor Rombouts, among others. His work mainly includes religious and mythological themes and allegorical scenes, although he also occasionally painted portraits. He began his career within a language still rooted in the mannerism of the sixteenth century, with compositions and figuresartificiosas and a palette of anti-classical tones, lightened by light. However, in his work "Scaldis and Antwerpia" of 1609, a clear evolution towards classical academic beauty, greater formal harmony and a more uniform palette can already be appreciated. This work also shows the influence of Caravaggio, mainly in the strong hallmarks of light and shadow. However, after this masterpiece Janssens will lose his personality, like many of his Antwerp colleagues, due to the great influence of Rubens and his new language. In fact, until Rubens' return to Antwerp in 1608, Janssens was considered the most important painter of historical subjects, although in the last decades of his work he devoted himself mainly to religious commissions. Today, works by Abraham Janssens are held in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the National Galleries of Denmark, Slovenia, Romania and Poland, the Kremer Collection in The Hague and the Texas Museum of Fine Arts, among other public and private collections.