Flemish painter from the first half of the 17th century
Nascendo Morimur
Oil on canvas, 55 x 45 cm
With frame, 64 x 53 cm
The allegorical painting commonly identified with the title Nascendo morimur is the work of a Flemish painter active in the first half of the 17th century, deeply indebted to the figurative tradition developed in Antwerp in the previous century and, in particular, to the models created by Frans Floris. The work is part of a line of iconographic and conceptual continuity that, through the circulation of prototypes and the mediation of his workshop, reached Northern Baroque sensibilities. The painting shows a young nude child, seated on a stone base. The body, solid and plastic, is rendered with strong attention to anatomical modeling, while the pose introduces an articulated symbolic system: the right foot rests on a skull, an evident allusion to death, while the right arm rests on an exhausted hourglass, an emblem of time passed and the transience of existence. These elements clearly refer to the repertoire of Vanitas, a central theme in moral reflection between the 16th and 17th centuries. The gesture of the right arm, extended towards the background, invites the viewer to observe the scene behind, where Christ's Resurrection can be glimpsed, the only possible answer to the human finitude evoked in the foreground. From an iconographic point of view, the work reworks a precise model: the Allegory by Frans Floris, now in a private collection, which was later reformulated, by Floris himself or by an artist from his circle, in a painting already titled Nascendo morimur which is now in the collections of the National Museum of Stockholm. The meaning of the motto, "we are born to die," is here expanded in a Christological key, contrasting physical death with the promise of resurrection. This dialectic between mors and salus constitutes the conceptual core of the image. Frans Floris, born Frans de Vriendt in Antwerp in 1516, son of the stonemason Cornelis I de Vriendt, initially trained as a sculptor, before dedicating himself to painting. After his apprenticeship with Lambert Lombard in Liège, he undertook a decisive trip to Italy, staying in Florence and Rome, where he deeply assimilated the lessons of Italian art. He was particularly influenced by Michelangelo and the Mannerists, especially Giorgio Vasari and Parmigianino. Upon his return to Antwerp, Floris founded a workshop of extraordinary size, with over a hundred apprentices, becoming the main mediator of Italian models in the Netherlands. In the specific case of Nascendo morimur, the connection with Parmigianino is particularly evident: the child's face and bust refer to the child in the Madonna of the Rose, now at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, as well as to the Infant Jesus in the Holy Family with Angels in the Prado Museum. The work thus stands as a significant example of the persistence and transformation of Frans Floris's legacy in the Flemish 17th century, demonstrating how his prototypes continued to be current and fruitful well beyond his death, which occurred in Antwerp in 1570.
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