The most famous and productive member of a large family of artists, Frans Francken the Younger was born in Antwerp in 1581.  He trained with his father Frans the Elder (1542-1616), and joined the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1605.  His reputation rests chiefly on his small-scale cabinet pictures with religious, mythological or allegorical themes, though he also painted some large-scale works and practised in many other genres as well.  He is remembered for his role in introducing several new themes into Flemish painting, such as the interiors of art galleries ((kunstkammern or cabinets d’amateurs), and genre scenes populated by monkeys (singeries). 

Frans Francken the Younger painted many scenes from the Passion of Christ.  The most important repertory of subjects in Christian art, the Passion Cycle encompasses the sequence of events beginning with Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem and ending with the Resurrection.  Here, the central scene representing the Crucifixion is surrounded by twelve small vignettes illustrating earlier episodes in the narrative.  In contrast to the vibrant colours of the main image, the subsidiary scenes are rendered in nuanced shades of brown (brunaille), grey (grisaille), or pink monochrome (rosaille).

The death of Christ on the cross is described in all four gospels (Matt. 27:33-56; Mark 15:22-41; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:17-37).  Francken’s representation is traditional in its iconography and structure.  A multitude has gathered to witness the event, which takes place on Mount Calvary, or Golgotha, just outside Jerusalem.  Christ hangs on the cross in the centre, flanked by the two criminals who were crucified at the same time.  The “good” one, who acknowledged Christ’s innocence, hangs on the Redeemer’s right-hand: it was to him that Jesus spoke the familiar words: “Truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).  A piece of paper affixed to the top of the cross inscribed with the letters ‘INIR’ is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews).  Standing to the left of the cross are the apostle John and the weeping Mary.  Their presence illustrates the passage in St. John’s Gospel in which Christ, from the cross, entrusted the Virgin to the care of the apostle John: ‘Jesus saw his mother with the disciple he loved standing beside her. He said to her, “Mother, there is your son”; and to the disciple, “There is your mother”; and from that moment the disciple took her into his home’ (John 19:26-27).  Mary Magdalene is also present, kneeling at the foot of the cross, embracing it.  In the left foreground, a group of soldiers, one of them holding a knife behind his back, quarrels over Christ’s cloak. All four gospels relate that after they had crucified Christ, the soldiers divided his clothes into four, one part for each man, however, they decided to cast lots for his tunic, which was a single seamless garment.  A splendid turbaned figure, mounted on a grey charger, appears in the right foreground: turning in the saddle, he looks the viewer directly in the eye.  The dramatic, grey sky recalls the darkness that is said to have descended over the whole land from mid-day until three in the afternoon.

Starting in the top left-hand corner and moving in a clockwise direction, the twelve subsidiary scenes illustrating earlier episodes in the cycle are[i]:-

Washing the disciples’ feet (John 13:4-17).  At the Last Supper, Christ “rose from the table, laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, tied it round him.  Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to wipe them with a towel”.  Christ is depicted kneeling in the act of washing the feet of Peter who is seated on a chair.  With these actions, he set an example of humility, saying unto his disciples, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him”.

The Last Supper (centre top) (Matt. 26:17-29; Mark 14:12-25; Luke 22:7-23; John 13:21-30).  This famous scene depicts the last meal that Christ took with the disciples in Jerusalem at which he predicted his imminent betrayal by Judas.  Christ is seated at a long table surrounded by his disciples, with his hand raised in a gesture of benediction in the act of blessing the bread and the wine.  “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body.  And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:26-28). 

The Agony in the Garden (Matt. 16:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46). After the Last Supper Christ, accompanied by Peter, James and John, retired to the garden of Gethsemane to pray.  There, he withdrew from the others and knelt in prayer.  According to Luke “there appeared to him an angel from heaven bringing him strength, and in anguish of spirit he prayed the more urgently”.  When he returned he found the disciples sleeping and rebuked them for their lack of resolve. 

The Betrayal (Matt. 26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52; Luke 22: 47-53; John 18:1-12). As Christ and his disciples were leaving the garden of Gethsemane, Judas, at the head of a band of armed guards, approached Christ and kissed him, a sign to the soldiers that this was the man they were to arrest.  To protect Jesus, Simon Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest. 

Christ before Caiaphas (Matt. 26:57-68; Mark 14:53-65; Luke 22:66-71).  Following his arrest, Christ was taken before the high priest, Caiaphas, where the scribes and elders were assembled.  There he was interrogated about his claims to be the Messiah and the Son of God, and was found guilty of blasphemy, a crime punishable by death.  The scene here depicts the moment when the high priest “rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy” (Matt. 26:65). 

Christ brought before Annas (John 18:12-23).  Annas was the father-in-law of the high priest Caiaphas.  Christ was brought before him bound and questioned about his teaching.  Christ stands before Annas with his hands tied. 

Mocking of Christ (Matt. 26:67; Mark 14:65; Luke 22:63).  After his appearance before Caiaphas, Jesus was handed back to the Jews who subjected him to various indignities.  “And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him” (Luke 22:63).  Christ is shown seated, his hands tied with cords, with two of his mockers taunting him.  One of them thrusts a reed in his hand as a mock sceptre. 

Christ before Pilate (centre bottom) (Matt. 27:11-26; Mark 15:2-15; Luke 23:13-25; John 18:28-40).  After having been tried and found guilty by the Jewish Sanhedrin, Jesus was bound and brought before Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judaea.  Pilate questioned him further about his claim to be “The King of the Jews”.  Although initially Pilate found Jesus to be innocent, ultimately he succumbed to pressure from the Jewish leaders and the crowd, and sentenced Jesus to be crucified. The scene here is set in an open courtyard outside the governor’s house.  Pilate is seated on a small dais, wearing a crown.  Christ stands before him, surrounded by soldiers. 

The Flagellation (Matt. 27:26; Mark 15:15; Luke 23:16 and 22; John 19:1). After Pilate had reluctantly bowed to the demands of the mob, he delivered Jesus to the soldiers to be scourged and crucified.  Christ is depicted bound to a column, naked except for a loincloth, being flogged by two soldiers.

The Crowning with thorns (Matt. 27:27-31; Mark 15:16-20; John 19:2-3). The gospels tell us that after beating Christ, the soldiers took him away and threw a scarlet robe about him, placed a crown of thorns upon his head, and a reed in his hand as a mock symbol of power.  They beat him around the head with a cane and spat upon and then knelt before him in mock homage. 

Ecce Homo (John 19:4-6).  “Behold the Man!”.  Pontius Pilate proclaimed these words to the Jews gathered outside the judgement hall as he led Christ before them, still wearing the crown of thorns, the red cloak, and holding the reed in his hands. “Here he is; I am bringing him out to let you know that I find no case against him … Behold the Man!”.  However, the crowd of onlookers called for him to be crucified. 

The Road to Calvary (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26-32; John 19:17).  Christ’s last journey from the house of Pilate to Golgotha, where he was crucified.  Here, Francken depicted him struggling up the stony path to the hill outside the city walls of Jerusalem where criminals were put to death.  Ashen-faced and wearing the crown of thorns, Christ has stumbled beneath the weight of the cross.  Simon of Cyrene, an old man with a white beard, tries to help him.  A young woman, recognisable as Veronica, has come forward and his holding out a cloth with which to wipe the sweat from Jesus’s face. 

Unlike in the Northern Netherlands, where the subject matter of painting became increasingly secular in the seventeenth century, religious painting flourished in Catholic Antwerp during the same period.  In a climate stimulated by the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Revival, the demand for religious paintings remained strong, not only for large-scale altarpieces, but also for smaller cabinet paintings suitable for the private collector.  Representations of the suffering of Christ were especially popular and were recommended to the faithful as emotional stimuli to piety.

Francken frequently employed the compositional format of a large central scene surrounded by smaller subsidiary scenes for his paintings of religious subjects.  It was an especially effective way to illustrate sequential episodes in a narrative, or a number of closely related subjects in a single painting.  Another somewhat smaller painting of the crucifixion encircled by small grisaille scenes depicting the Evangelists and episodes from the Passion may be seen in the Palais du Louvre, in Paris[ii].  A painting of The Crucified Christ enframed with Scenes of Martydom of the Apostles is in the Dayton Art Institute, in Dayton, Ohio[iii]. 

The present painting has long been hidden from public view in a French aristocratic collection.  Fortunately, it has come down to us in remarkably good condition, so that we can today appreciate the delicacy of the artist’s touch and his luminous, glazy technique.  In addition to the rich colours of the central scene, Francken has enlivened the painted surface with a few touches of metallic gold.  A gold line delimits the central scene from the side vignettes, and gold shines from Christ’s halo in the centre top representation of The Last Supper. 

Francken signed his works with ‘de jonge Frans Francken’ (‘the young Frans Francken’) before the death of his father in 1616.  From the late 1620s, he took to using the signature ‘de oude Fr. Francken; (‘the old Fr. Francken’), or its abbreviated form ‘Do. ffrank”, as in the present case, to distinguish himself from his son Frans III. 

BIOGRAPHY

One of six children born to the painter Frans Francken the Elder and Elisabeth Mertens, Frans the Younger was baptised in the Cathedral of our Lady in Antwerp on 6 May 1581.  Frans II and three of his brothers – Thomas (c. 1574-after 1639), Ambrosius II (1581-1632) and Hieronymus II (1578-1623) - followed in the footsteps of their father Frans I, and their uncles Hieronymus I (1540-1610) and Ambrosius I (1544-1618), becoming painters.  It is assumed that Frans the Younger served his apprenticeship in the studio of his father, but also probably trained in Paris with his uncle Hieronymous I.  In 1605, Frans II became a master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke.  In 1607, he married Elisabeth Placquet, and by August of the same year he had bought a house in the Nieuwe Kerkstraatachter St. Andries.  The couple had seven children, four of whom survived until adulthood, and three - Frans Francken III (1607-1667) Hieronymus Francken III (1611-1661/81) and Ambrosius Francken (1614-c.1662) - became painters. 

In 1615 Frans II was elected Dean of the guild, and the following year he bought a house with a gateway near the ‘iron weighbridge’ at the Boksteeg.  He became extremely successful and operated a large studio.  However, only one pupil, Daniel Hagen, is recorded in the guild records in 1616/17, but Francken may have been exempted from the obligation of reporting apprentices to the guild.  Alternatively, he may have been able to run his studio only with the assistance of members of his own family.  Documents reveal that he worked directly for the art dealer Christian van Immerzeel through whom many of his paintings were exported to Seville between 1624 and 1635.  His greatest skill was as a figure painter and he collaborated with at least twenty of the leading landscape, still-life and architectural painters of the day including Jan Brueghel the Younger, Abraham Govaerts, Joos de Momper II, Tobias Verhaecht, Bartholomeus van Bassen, Pieter Neefs I and II, Hendrick van Steenwijck and Paul Vredeman de Vries.  Frans Francken the Younger died on 6 May 1642 and was buried in the Church of St. Andries in Antwerp.