Bildnis der Clara Serena Rubens, Tochter des Künstlers

Rubens painted his own family more than almost any artist of his time, and this is his eldest child and only daughter, Clara Serena. She was the first child of his marriage to Isabella Brant, and he made several tender studies of her as she grew. This one dates from around 1623, the year she died, at twelve. It has the feel of a private head study rather than a formal commission, the kind of thing a painter keeps in the studio. The paint is loose and rapid around the collar and the eyes are soft and alive. For a long time the attribution was doubted and the picture drifted away from Rubens's name, until specialists at the Rubens house in Antwerp examined it and confirmed his hand. Clara Serena did not reach her thirteenth birthday.