IN ANTWERP’S ROYAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS there is a triptych by Peter Paul Rubens which I return to time and time again. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas is one of the most iconic scenes in Christian art, yet the images which arrest the eye are the portraits on the two side panels that depict the painting’s donors: Sir Nicolaas Rockox, the Mayor of Antwerp, and his wife Adriana Perez.
Sir Nicolaas was one of Rubens’ closest friends, and this intimate relationship is made manifest in the quality of these portraits. You feel you know these people — you feel you could step into this picture and talk to them. It’s hard to believe they lived four hundred years ago.
These portraits sum up why Antwerp is integral to Rubens’s story, and why a visit to this lively Flemish port city is essential if you want to get inside his art. Rubens spent most of his life here, he painted most of his masterpieces here, and the city boasts an unrivalled collection of his paintings.
There are dozens of these
