Rubens & Brueghel: Albert of Austria Postcard

From our posters with the same name. Not everybody knows this, but Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder were friends. Moreover, they painted together, like this painting (ca 1615): Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. Rubens did the portraits, and Brueghel painted the landscape and the architecture. In the back you can see the palace of Tervuren (Tervueren) near Brussels, Belgium which was the former residence of the Duke and Dutchess of Brabant. Archduke Albert VII of Austria (13 November 1559 – 13 July 1621) was, jointly with his wife, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621, ruling the Habsburg territories in the southern Low Countries and the north of modern France. Prior to this, he had been a cardinal, archbishop of Toledo, viceroy of Portugal and Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He would eventually succeed his brother Emperor Matthias as reigning archduke of Lower and Upper Austria, but abdicated in favour of Emperor Ferdinand II after only a few months, making it the shortest (and often ignored) reign in Austrian history.