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His house, his studio, his garden in the city, the Museum Nicolaas Rockox, named after patron and friend of the artist, who regrouped several of his paintings and those of his assistants, as well as the Church of St. Jacques, show the great love that Antwerp has for Rubens. This famous painter, who was also such a great architect and scholar diplo- mat, was immortalized in a bronze statue in the nineteenth century without his palette in order not to reduce him to one of his fabulous talent.
Antwerp has dedicated a magnificent exhibition to his private works and reveals an inti- mate character of his art, another facet of the great man with the portraits of his family: his brother, his two wives and his children. These paintings talk with emotion and ten- derness about the memory of his first wife, Isabella Brant, his daughter, Clara Serena, and his second wife, Helena Fourment.
The incredible freshness of his paintings with the bodily presence recalls how alive this giant is, who still makes his beloved city live and vibrate beyond the centuries.
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