[2] They wed in 1609, the same year that work was created; it was ultimately given to Isabella’s father Jan Brant and would later end up in the collection of Johann Wilhem II of Düsseldorf.

[5] The painting is a full-length double portrait of the couple seated in a bower (wikt), also called an arbor of honeysuckle.

The couple is dressed in fine clothing of an aristocratic class within this portrait while also maintaining a casual and adoring pose.

Such a loss seems to me worthy of deep feeling, and since the true remedy for all ills is Forgetfulness, daughter of Time, I must without doubt look to her for help.

But I find it very hard to separate grief for this loss from the memory of a person whom I must love and cherish as long as I live…”[5] Other important historical contexts contributed to the meaning of this double portrait, including the popular art theories and books at the time, mainly, the concept of liefde baart kunst and the use of emblem books in the construction of this painting by Rubens.

[2]This particular artwork by Rubens is one example of this concept illustrated in painting, specifically the idea of the wife or spouse as the model and that relationship in tales.

[2] The idea of marriage was also an important concept for Rubens and other artists of this period as it symbolized a moral and respectable person.

Rubens may have been influenced by a notable and popular emblem book about the “domestication of love,” titled, Amorum Emblemata (1608) by Otto van Veen.

[13] The composition of this piece also pulled from a emblem book, titled Emblematum liber by Andrea Alciato; specifically, the motto and printed image of In fidem uxorium (conjugal fidelity).

[2] Around the 18th-century the painting ended up in the gallery collection of Johann Wilhelm II von der Pfalz in Düsseldorf.

[3] Later on, Honeysuckle Bower and other paintings by Rubens in the Düsseldorf Collection were given to the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich as a form of inheritance in 1805.