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After the end of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1621, the Spanish Habsburg rulers entrusted Rubens with diplomatic missions. While in Paris in 1622 to discuss the Marie de' Medici cycle, Rubens engaged in clandestine information gathering activities, which at the time was an important task of diplomats. He relied on his fr... |
Some members of the courts he visited did not treat him as an equal as they held that courtiers should not use their hands in any art or trade, but he was also received as an equal gentleman by many others. Rubens was raised by Philip IV of Spain to the nobility in 1624 and knighted by Charles I of England in 1630. Phi... |
Rubens was in Madrid for eight months in 1628–1629. In addition to diplomatic negotiations, he executed several important works for Philip IV and private patrons. He also began a renewed study of Titian's paintings, copying numerous works including the Madrid Fall of Man (1628–29). During this stay, he befriended the c... |
His stay in Antwerp was brief, and he soon travelled on to London where he remained until April 1630. An important work from this period is the Allegory of Peace and War (1629; National Gallery, London). It illustrates the artist's lively concern for peace, and was given to Charles I as a gift. |
While Rubens's international reputation with collectors and nobility abroad continued to grow during this decade, he and his workshop also continued to paint monumental paintings for local patrons in Antwerp. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1625–26) for the Cathedral of Antwerp is one prominent example. |
Last decade (1630–1640) |
Rubens's last decade was spent in and around Antwerp. Major works for foreign patrons still occupied him, such as the ceiling paintings for the Banqueting House at Inigo Jones's Palace of Whitehall, but he also explored more personal artistic directions. |
In 1630, four years after the death of his first wife Isabella, the 53-year-old painter married her niece, the 16-year-old Helena Fourment. Hélène inspired the voluptuous figures in many of his paintings from the 1630s, including The Feast of Venus (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), The Three Graces and The Judgement ... |
In 1635, Rubens bought an estate outside Antwerp, the Steen, where he spent much of his time. Landscapes, such as his A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning (National Gallery, London) and Farmers Returning from the Fields (Pitti Gallery, Florence), reflect the more personal nature of many of his later works. He also ... |
Death |
Rubens died from heart failure as a result of his chronic gout on 30 May 1640. He was interred in the Saint James' Church in Antwerp. A burial chapel for the artist and his family was built in the church. Construction on the chapel started in 1642 and was completed in 1650 when Cornelis van Mildert (the son of Rubens's... |
At the request of canon van Parijs, Rubens's epitaph, written in Latin by his friend Gaspar Gevartius, was chiselled on the chapel floor. In the tradition of the Renaissance, Rubens is compared in the epitaph to Apelles, the most famous painter of Greek Antiquity. |
Work |
His biblical and mythological nudes are especially well-known. Painted in the Baroque tradition of depicting women as soft-bodied, passive, and to the modern eye highly sexualised beings, his nudes emphasise the concepts of fertility, desire, physical beauty, temptation, and virtue. Skilfully rendered, these paintings ... |
Rubens's depiction of males is equally stylised, replete with meaning, and quite the opposite of his female subjects. His male nudes represent highly athletic and large mythical or biblical men. Unlike his female nudes, most of his male nudes are depicted partially nude, with sashes, armour, or shadows shielding them f... |
Workshop |
Paintings from Rubens's workshop can be divided into three categories: those he painted by himself, those he painted in part (mainly hands and faces), and copies supervised from his drawings or oil sketches. He had, as was usual at the time, a large workshop with many apprentices and students. It has not always been po... |
He also often sub-contracted elements such as animals, landscapes or still-lifes in large compositions to specialists such as animal painters Frans Snyders and Paul de Vos, or other artists such as Jacob Jordaens. One of his most frequent collaborators was Jan Brueghel the Elder. |
Selected exhibitions |
1936: Rubens and His Times, Paris. |
1997: The Century of Rubens in French Collections, Paris. |
2004: Rubens, Palais de Beaux-Arts, Lille. |
2005: Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. |
2015: Rubens and His Legacy, The Royal Academy, London. |
2017: Rubens: The Power of Transformation, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. |
2019: Early Rubens, Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. |
Lost works |
Lost works by Rubens include: |
The Crucifixion, painted for the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, was imported to England in 1811. It was auctioned in 1812 and again in 1820 and 1821 but was lost at sea sometime after 1821. |
Equestrian Portrait of the Archduke Albert |
Susannah and the Elders is now known only from engraving from 1620 by Lucas Vosterman. |
Satyr, Nymph, Putti and Leopards is now known only from engraving. |
Judith Beheading Holofernes c. 1609 known only through the 1610 engraving by Cornelis Galle the Elder. |
Works destroyed in the bombardment of Brussels include: |
Madonna of the Rosary painted for the Royal Chapel of the Dominican Church |
Virgin Adorned with Flowers by Saint Anne, 1610 painted for the Church of the Carmelite Friars |
Saint Job Triptych, 1613, painted for Saint Nicholas Church |
Cambyses Appointing Otanes Judge, Judgment of Solomon, and Last Judgment, all for the Magistrates' Hall |
In the Coudenberg Palace fire there were several works by Rubens destroyed, like Nativity (1731), Adoration of the Magi and Pentecost. |
The paintings Neptune and Amphitrite, Vision of Saint Hubert and Diana and Nymphs Surprised by Satyrs was destroyed in the Friedrichshain flak tower fire in 1945. |
The painting The Abduction of Proserpine was destroyed in the fire at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 5 February 1861. |
The painting Crucifixion with Mary, St. John, Magdalen, 1643 was destroyed in the English Civil War by Parliamentarians in the Queen's Chapel, Somerset House, London, 1643 |
The painting Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV of Spain was destroyed in the fire at Royal Alcázar of Madrid fire in 1734. A copy is in the Uffizi Gallery. |
The Continence of Scipio was destroyed in a fire in the Western Exchange, Old Bond Street, London, March 1836 |
The painting The Lion Hunt was removed by Napoleon's agents from Schloss Schleissheim, near Munich, 1800 and was destroyed later in a fire at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. |
An alleged Rubens painting Portrait of a Girl reported to have been in the collection of Alexander Dumas was reported lost in a fire. |
The painting Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Buckingham (1625) and the ceiling painting The Duke of Buckingham Triumphing over Envy and Anger (c. 1625), both later owned by the Earl of Jersey at Osterley Park, were destroyed in a fire at the Le Gallais depository in St Helier, Jersey, on 30 September 1949. |
Portrait of Philip IV of Spain from 1628 was destroyed in the incendiary attack at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1985. |
Portrait of George Villiers, c. 1625. This painting that had been deemed lost for nearly 400 years was rediscovered in 2017 in Pollok House, Glasgow, Scotland. Conservation treatment carried out by Simon Rollo Gillespie helped to demonstrate that the work was not a later copy by a lesser artist but was the original by ... |
Works |
Early paintings |
Portraits |
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