Single portrait of Jan van der Linden

General information
Original location Antwerp, refectory of the convent of the Alexian friars (possibly)
Current location Belgium, private collection
Provenance See Vlieghe
Artist Peter Paul Rubens (or workshop/copy)
Date Seventeenth century
Material Panel
Dimensions 65 x 48 cm
Visual elements
Short description Portrayed half-length, turned to the left, facing the viewer. His right hand is placed on a skull. In the upper right corner a coat of arms.
Depicted pilgrim
Personal information
Name Jan van der Linden (see remarks)
Social status / profession Alexian friar; prior of the Alexian convent in Antwerp; Alexian provincial of Brabant (1622-1632); Knight of Jerusalem; plague master (pestmeester) of Antwerp (1632)
Coat of arms Top right: semicircular shield - in silver a red Jerusalem Cross. Behind it a palm. The shield is depicted as if attached to a small tree (the symbol of the Van der Linden family)
Other known portraits Cornelis de Vos?, Single portrait of Jan vander Linden (Boechout, Friars Alexians)
Master from Antwerp, The Congregation of the Alexians in Antwerp, 1621? (Boechout, Friars Alexians)
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 20 March 1633 - 25 November 1633
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage See coat of arms
Travel report Jan vander Linden, Heerlycke ende gheluckighe reyse naer het H. Landt ende de stadt van Jerusalem, beschreven ende bereyst door broeder Jan vander Linden, pater van de Celle-broeders tot Antwerpen in het jaer ons Heere 1633 tot stichtinge ende recreatie vande jonckheyt die geerne wat nieuws lesen (Antwerp 1634). According to this report, he travelled with Jacob Pussenius, the father confessor of his convent, over Paris to Genoa, where they boarded a ship to the Holy Land. Here they visited the holy places in and around Jerusalem.
Death
Date of death 26 February 1638
Location of grave Antwerp, Convent of the Alexians
Additional information
General remarks A nineteenth-century copy exists (whereabouts unknown), and an eighteenth-century etching made by Nicolaas van den Bergh (Boechout, Archive of the Alexian friars, 794/312). Under the etching is written: J. Vander Linden. Eques Jerosolymitanus. Alexianorum provincialis, on which the identification is based.
Literature
  • Vlieghe, Hans, Rubens portraits of identified sitters painted at Antwerp, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard 19, vol. 2) (London and New York 1987), pp. 127-128, cat. 116
  • Smeyers, Maurits, Werken van barmhartigheid. 650 jaar Alexianen in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (Leuven 1985), pp. 175-176
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