Peter Paul Rubens
 (1577–1640)
 

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens

Two Sleeping Children


c. 1612-13
Oil on canvas
65.5 × 50.5 cm
The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

 

The two innocent sleeping children seen here are thought to be Clara and Philip, the children of Rubens's elder brother. This elder brother, Philip, was extremely close to Rubens and he died in 1611. He left two children, born in 1610 and 1611, and Rubens is thought to have created this study from his deep regard for his brother. Judging from the ages of the children, this work is thought to have been painted around 1612/1613. Rubens later used the faces of these two children in large-scale paintings in oils, respectively the Madonna in Floral Wreath (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and the Madonna and the Angels (Musée du Louvre, Paris).