Copperplates for the double-portrait of Albert, Archduke of Austria and his wife, Isabella.

2 copperplates, 43 x 30,1 cm, signed in the margin below "Ioannes Muller Sculptor deuotionis ergô. D.D. Ex Archetypo Petri Pauli Rubens".

In mint condition.

Between 1608 and 1626 the Amsterdam printmaker and publisher Jan Harmensz. Muller (1571-1628) engraved a number of impressive portrait engravings after paintings. In 1615 Jan Muller obtained the official privilege to publish the state portraits of Albert and Isabella, whose reign (1598-1633) is often considered the Golden Age of the Habsburg Netherlands. The prints were based on paintings by Rubens of the same year (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna). With the publication of these portraits (as with his portrait of Prince Maurits of Orange) Muller was capitalising on the political realities. The prints excell in their staggering amount of detail and are exceptional in their contrast between the elaborated middle tones for the figures and the dark saturated backgrounds in the final state. The two copperplates were sold in Brussels in 1781 from the estate of Charles-Alexandre de Lorraine (1712-1780), and have remained in a Belgian private collection untill now (as also mentioned in Hollstein).
Ref. New Hollstein (Muller), 62-63.
Prov. Charles-Alexandre de Lorraine, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, sale on 20 August 1781. - Belgian private collection.