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Frans Ykens

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Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass Vase

Frans Ykens[1] (Antwerp, 1601 - Brussels, 1693) was a Flemish still life painter who specialised in flower pieces, banquet pieces and garland paintings.

Life

Frans Ykens commenced his artistic study at age 14 with his uncle Osias Beert, one of the earliest painters to specialize in still lives. According to his own statement of 1641, he had traveled 12 years earlier (i.e. in 1629) to the Provence where he stayed, amongst others, in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.[2]

Fruit in a Wan-Li porcelain bowl

Ykens was enrolled in 1631 as a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.[3] In 1635 he married the flower painter Catarina Ykens-Floquet, who was the daughter of history painter Lucas Floquet I and the sister of three painters.[4]

Ykens was successful and his works were very popular with collectors of his time. He painted for Archduke Leopold in Brussels. His works were collected by Eleanor of Austria, Queen of Poland who purchased his work through Antwerp art dealers Forchondt. He was also very appreciated by his colleagues as is demonstrated by the fact that Rubens owned six of his still lifes.[5]

His success allowed him to acquire a sumptuous dwelling in central Antwerp. In 1665 he moved to Brussels, where he worked until his death.[3] He must have fallen on hard times in his later years as he had to mortgage his property and his possessions were sold off after he died to pay his debts.[2]

Ykens was the teacher of his niece Catherine Ykens (II), Osias Beert (II) and Gilliam Dandoy, who painted in his decorative style.[3][5]

Work

General

The Madonna and Child with attendant angels, in a sculpted cartouche

Frans Ykens' oeuvre is fairly well established as he signed most of his work.[5] All his dated paintings (from 1635 to 1663) are from his Antwerp years.[6] He painted mainly fruit and flower still lifes, breakfast pieces as well as hunt and fish still lifes.[3]

He often collaborated with other painters of his time, such as Daniel Seghers, Jacob Jordaens, Erasmus Quellinus II and probably Peter Paul Rubens. Ykens would paint the flowers and garlands while the other artists painted the remainder of the painting.[7]

Throughout his long career he worked in a number of styles and formats. He was influenced by the work of other still-life painters, including the "breakfast" pieces (ontbijtjes) of Willem Claesz Heda and the pronkstillevens or large sumptuous still lifes of Frans Snyders. His bouquets of flowers in glass vases are in the manner of Daniel Seghers and Jan Philip van Thielen while his compositions with porcelain bowls of fruit are indebted to the pioneers of this genre, Osias Beert and Jacob van Hulsdonck.[8]

Garland paintings

Frans Ykens painted multiple devotional garland paintings. Garland paintings are a special type of still life developed in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with the Italian cardinal Federico Borromeo at the beginning of the 17th century.[9] Other artists involved in the early development of the genre included Hendrick van Balen, Andries Daniels, Peter Paul Rubens and Daniel Seghers. The genre was initially connected to the visual imagery of the Counter-Reformation movement.[9] It was further inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court (then the rulers over the Southern Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally.[9][10]

Still life with shrimp, ramps, flowers and a glass vase

Garland paintings typically show a flower garland around a devotional image, portrait or other religious symbol (such as the host).[10] By the second half of the century secular themes such as portraits and mythological subjects also decorated the central part of the many paintings made in this fashion.[11] An example of a garland painting by Ykens is the Holy Family in a Wreath of Flowers in the Hermitage Museum, a collaboration with Erasmus Quellinus II.

Notes

  1. ^ Alternative spellings of family name: Eykens, Ijkens and Eykens and of his first name: Francoys
  2. ^ a b Frans Jozef Peter Van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, Antwerpen, 1883, p. 1130-1131 Template:Link language
  3. ^ a b c d Frans Ykens at the Netherlands Institute for Art History Template:Link language
  4. ^ Catarina Ykens I at the Netherlands Institute for Art History Template:Link language
  5. ^ a b c Frans Ykens at de Enciclopedia online of the Prado
  6. ^ About Frans Ykens at Jean Moust
  7. ^ Joost vander Auwera, Rubens: A Genius at Work: the Works of Peter Paul Rubens in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Reconsidered, Lannoo Uitgeverij, 2007, p. 50
  8. ^ Peter Mitchell. "Ykens , Frans." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 27 Jan. 2016
  9. ^ a b c David Freedberg, "The Origins and Rise of the Flemish Madonnas in Flower Garlands, Decoration and Devotion", Münchener Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, xxxii, 1981, pp. 115–150.
  10. ^ a b Susan Merriam, Seventeenth-Century Flemish Garland Paintings. Still Life, Vision and the Devotional Image, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012
  11. ^ John Rupert Martin, "A Portrait of Rubens by Daniel Seghers," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 17 (1958), pp. 2-20.

References

Media related to Frans Ykens at Wikimedia Commons

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