17^th Century Flemish

Painter of mythological scenes, religious works and allegories; printmaker.

Also known as Frans the Younger, son of the painter of the same name, he is perhaps the best known and most prolific member of a family in which up to fourteen artists have been documented between 1550 and 1715.

A disciple of his father, from whom he received teachings in the Frans Floris tradition, Frans travelled to Italy at a very early age, where he was able to study the masters of the Venetian School and shed the Flemish Italianate style practiced by his father and uncles.

In 1605 he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp, of which he was appointed dean in 1614. In 1640 he was recorded as a creator of cabinet paintings.

He made works in collaboration with other artists, including Brueghel, Pieter Neeffs, Van Bassen and Joos de Momper.

Even though Francken cannot be compared with the great masters of his generation of painters from Antwerp, like Rubens, he was highly competent at making an anecdotal genre ―Kunstkamer or art cabinets― which his descendants would keep in force for another century. These works proportion insights into the art collections and objects treasured by the aristocracy and bourgeoisie of the time.

In them, a wide gamut of items was depicted in great detail against a neutral background: natural products like nautilus shells, fossils or ostrich eggs that were mounted on extremely elaborate gold and silver bases; automaton or ingenious clock devices; weapons and clothing from unknown peoples (from the Indies, the Far East, etc.). Francken included all that range in his oil paintings, which he used to work on copper. He also undertook genre and landscape paintings, and was one of the first to paint views of collections, similarly to what Van Dyck did with Archduke Leopold’s cabinet. The purpose of these paintings was to flatter the collector with a visual catalogue of his vast holdings.