Abstract

This chapter proposes two of Rubens's early dyadic couples—the Ovidian characters Hercules and Omphale (c.1606) and the Old Testament figures Samson and Delilah (1609)—as iconographical and compositional keys to his well-known Self-Portrait with Isabella Brant (1609), one of the early seventeenth century's rare life-size depictions of a husband and wife within the same frame. Paying particular attention to such aspects of the paintings as Rubens's placement of the women in relation to the men, the role of drapery and (cross-)dress, and the biblical topoi to which all three images gesture, this chapter reveals the Self-Portrait's potential ambiguity, perhaps a mirror of Rubens's own shifting notions of sex difference.

Keywords: Rubens; gender; marriage portrait; Samson and Delilah; Hercules and Omphale; Isabella Brant; woman on top

And thus Sampsons inordinate affection towards a wicked woman caused him to loose Gods excellent giftes, and became a slaue vnto them, whom hee should haue ruled. Where wee see howe dangerous a thing it is, for any man or woman to giue place too much to our affections, for if we doe, without doubt we shall be sure to be destroyed, as Sampson was by Dalila, who thus by wicked daliance betraid him to the Philistines for money. Iudg. 16.4. &c