Frans Francken III

A great deal of 17th-century Antwerp painting was made by two people. One man painted the architecture, another came in afterwards and put in the figures, and the finished picture often carries both signatures. Frans Francken III spent much of his career as the second man, adding the small worshippers and strollers to other painters' church interiors, above all to those of Pieter Neeffs the Younger, whose family specialised in the tall pale naves of Antwerp's churches.

He was born in 1607 into the largest painting dynasty in the city. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all painters, and so many of the family were called Frans that art historians number them. His own figures leaned on Rubens closely enough that he was called the Rubensian Francken. He became a master in the Antwerp guild in 1639, was its dean from 1656 to 1666, and died the year after he left the post.