(Antwerp 1581–1642) and (Antwerp 1578–1623)
The Rich Man and Poor Lazarus,
oil on panel, 47 x 78 cm, framed

We are grateful to Ursula Härting, who has examined the present painting in the original, for confirming its authenticity and for compiling the following catalogue entry.

“The painting The Rich Man and Poor Lazarus, which is known to me in the original, stems from the collaboration between the brothers Hieronymus II and Frans Francken II. Frans II is the cabinet painter who is still recognised today as the renowned painter of staffage figures in the age of Rubens. The younger of the two brothers, he was admitted as a master to Antwerp’s Guild of Saint Luke as early as 1605. In 1607, following his apprenticeship with his uncle, Ambrosius Francken I (circa 1544–1618), Hieronymus joined the painters’ guild as an independent master. Treating similar subject matter, he followed in the tradition of small figure painting practised by his younger brother, in whose studio he seems to have collaborated until his premature death. Such teamwork between the members of a studio was very common at the time.
We simultaneously recognise here individual scenes from the parable told by Saint Luke: the rich man is seated at a table with an opulent meal in front of him, while the hungry poor man is brutally chased away and does not even receive some of the leftovers. A toad on the rich man’s canopied throne is emblematic of his greed and miserliness. Even in the hour of his death, shown in the picture in the window above the table, the rich man is unrepentant and unaware of his appalling sin. Confined to purgatory, visible on the left-hand side, he begs for mercy, yet without any self-criticism. In heaven, Father Abraham comforts Lazarus, but denies the rich man consolation and pity, due to the latter’s lack of insight.

Frans II’s characteristic hand is partly already recognisable here in the glazing technique, which he employed primarily for the luxurious food on the table, such as for the artichoke, the olives, the pastries, and the sweet fruit purée decorated with sweetmeat, but also for the scene on the terrace, where a dog licks the wounds of the poor man, who is beaten by the rich man’s servants.

The influence of Ambrosius I on Hieronymus II becomes obvious in the physiognomies of the rich man and his counterpart, as well as in the ornaments of the costumes, which are linear rather than painterly.
This stage-like composition from the studio of Frans Francken was highly appreciated at the time, as is suggested by the several versions that have survived (see U. Härting, Frans Francken d. J. - Die Gemälde, Freren 1989, cat. no. 164–167). Pleasure was certainly taken in the luxurious dining culture, which was coupled with a biblical moral without being overly authoritarian. Judging from the impasto painting technique, the colours, the teased hairstyles and hairpins, and the costumes trimmed with lace cuffs, this painting by the two brothers dates from the late 1610s.”