Frans II Francken (“the Younger”) was born in Antwerp in 1581. His father, Frans Francken the Elder, is considered the founding father of the Francken dynasty of artists, which produced about a dozen painters, including a female artist, Isabella Francken. Frans II, or “the Younger”, was arguably the most talented among them, and definitely the most famous. He undertook several trips to Italy, where he probably first met Rubens. He joined the guild of St Luke in 1605; in 1614, he became the dean of the guild. In 1607, Francken married Elisabeth Plaquet ‘with the special permission of the bishop’. This may have had something to do with the fact that their firstborn son, Frans III Francken (who also became a painter and was trained by his father), was born before the end of the year. Francken was a member of the Antwerp rhetoric chamber De Violieren, for which he painted – in collaboration with Hendrick van Balen, Jan I Brueghel and Sebastiaen Vrancx – a very fine coat of arms, which is still kept in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp today.

 

Francken was a versatile and prolific painter, producing not only – often small-scale – mythological, biblical, historical and allegorical paintings, mostly painted on copper or panel, but also large-scale altar pieces. He was also an innovator with regard to subject matter, being among the first in painting genre pieces with monkeys and so-called kunstkamer or gallery paintings, depicting artistic and natural treasures in a collector’s gallery. He is also known to have produced small panel paintings as decorations for cabinets, a piece of furniture for which the Antwerp workshops were well-known. As a result of his artistic talent, innovative iconography and business sense, Francken became hugely successful. Already in 1607 he was able to buy a large house in Antwerp where he lived and established his large workshop. As a highly skilled figure painter, Francken often collaborated with others, painting the figures in their landscapes (Joos de Momper, Abraham Govaerts), architectural compositions (Pieter Neeffs) and flower paintings (Jan Brueghel the Elder, Andries Daniels).

 

In the first years of his artistic career – after being recorded as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1605 – Frans Francken the Younger treated the biblical and historical genres just as much as the allegorical and mythological topics. A subject he depicted several times is The Last Judgement. The present grisaille seems to be a preparatory sketch for some of these. High in the clouds sits Jesus Christ as the final judge. With expressive gestures, he divides Good and Evil. The righteous await their turn to be taken heavenwards, while the sinners flee in terror.

 

Being a young painter, Francken found inspiration in the imagery of other (contemporary) masters. He took, for example, some of the figures in Hendrik Goltzius’s series of four prints of The Last Judgement (New Hollstein, Gotlzius II, 342-345) and used them in the present picture, as he also did in The Damned Being Cast into Hell (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG_1106). Both paintings can be dated around 1605-1610.