Joannes Gaspard Gevartius, (1593-1666)

By 1628 Rubens was running Europe's busiest painting workshop and also working as a diplomat; that summer he set off for Madrid on a secret peace mission and would soon be knighted by two kings. This portrait belongs to a quieter world, the world of friendship. It shows Jan Gaspar Gevartius, the city secretary of Antwerp and a serious classical scholar, caught mid-thought at his desk with a pen in hand. Behind him sits a bust of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, on whose writings Gevartius was preparing a commentary. Rubens trusted him enough to leave his own son Albert's education in his care. Years later the two would work together again, planning the arches and stages built to welcome Antwerp's new governor in 1635.