In 1624, Peter Paul Rubens was commissioned to paint the likeness of Matthaeus Yrsselius, the influential abbot of Sint-Michiel's Abbey in Antwerp. The commission was more than a personal tribute; it was a public declaration of Yrsselius’s role as a patron of the arts and a leader in Antwerp’s religious and intellectual life. Yrsselius, known for supporting the Counter-Reformation and fostering the arts within his abbey, chose Rubens at the height of the artist’s fame.

The portrait not only immortalized the abbot but also signaled the abbey’s prestige to visitors and rivals alike. Rubens captures Yrsselius at the height of his authority, seated and adorned in the black habit of the Augustinian order. The abbot’s gaze is steady, meeting the viewer with a mixture of gravitas and approachability, his right hand resting gently on a closed book—likely a reference to his learning and spiritual leadership. The heavy gold chain around his neck is a symbol of office, while the subdued background draws all attention to the sitter’s face and hands, the instruments of thought and action.

Compared to the more theatrical ecclesiastical portraits by Anthony van Dyck, Rubens’s approach here is restrained, focusing on psychological presence rather than elaborate setting. The precise early history of the painting is not fully documented, but it is known that Rubens painted several portraits of prominent clerics in Antwerp during this period, often for display within their institutions. Portrait of Matthaeus Yrsselius would have originally hung in the abbey, a testament to both Yrsselius’s leadership and Rubens’s close ties to Antwerp’s religious elite. Over the centuries, as the abbey’s fortunes changed and its treasures were dispersed, the painting left its original home.

Today, it stands as a rare surviving image of a key figure in Antwerp’s religious and cultural history, and as a record of Rubens’s skill in capturing the dignity of his sitters.