RKD STUDIES

David Teniers II DPG146, DPG142

... the Prodigal Son is usually depicted on his knees praying, or standing still, regretting his sinful ways. It would more plausibly be paired with a winter scene, such as the one in a German private collection (though not in a landscape format), in which a peasant is driving his two pigs through a winter landscape (Related works, no. 1) [1].DPG146 seems to have a distinguished provenance. It seems to be first recorded in the collection of the French statesman Charles-Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802) in 1788. It definitely appears in 1801 in the sale of the collection of François-Louis-Joseph de Laborde-Méréville (1761–1802), formerly Conseiller du Roi and Garde du Trésor Royal, whose aunt, Madame d’Harvelay, had married Calonne in 1788. Might Calonne have given her the Sow picture? In 1791 Laborde-Méréville purchased many of the works in the collection of Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duc d’Orléans II (1747–93), to prevent their export from France, but had to sell them in England when he was forced into exile in 1792.133 The picture is presumably ‘A Landscape with Pigs’ purchased by Bourgeois at that sale in 1801.This painting is one of fifty works in the collection chosen to be reproduced in a series of coloured aquatints published between 1816 and 1820 by Ralph Cockburn (Related works, no. 2) [2], artist and first keeper of the Gallery. It is also one of the few reproduced on a much larger scale, showing the appreciation that contemporaries had for this painting. Furthermore, the painting was still prized in 1905 when it was described in the Gallery’s catalogue (first published in 1880) as ‘the most brilliant and glowing in colour’ of all of Teniers’ paintings in the collection. ...

... icture shows a Flemish farmyard. In the centre is a white horse eating hay, seen in profile; to the right a bald old man is cutting hay to make chaff; to the left are some chickens; beyond them is a woman dressed in red and blue standing in the doorway of a cottage. There are two more figures in the alley behind her, one of whom stands holding a shovel. Teniers had a stock of figure types which he would reuse again and again: the old man is not very different from his St Peter in DPG314. Lüdke considered that the picture was painted c. 1645, because of a painting with a similar bearded old man in a scene with horse trading in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein (Related works, no. 1) [3].The subject of chaff-cutting is very rare in Netherlandish painting – as is the depiction of work in general.150 According to Kettering only three 17th-century canvases show a chaff-cutter: DPG142, and two pictures by Caspar Netscher (c. 1636–84), who is otherwise known for his images of the higher classes.151 In one, in Philadelphia, we see the chaff-cutter on a farm, with figures who are probably his family (Related works, no. 2a) [4]; the other, in the Rijksmuseum, concentrates on the figure itself (Related works, no. 2b). In both the worker looks out at the viewer. Kettering places these pictures in a tradition of farm scenes with working people that started in Rotterdam and spread southwards. Netscher had probably been inspired by an earlier image by his master Gerard ter Borch II (1617–81) depicting another modern mechanical device, The Knife-grinder’s Family (Related works, no. 2c). Lüdke suggests that Netscher’s picture may have an allegorical meaning, alluding to the saying ‘separating the wheat from the chaff’.152 In that case the working farmer would represent Prudence.153 Gudlaugsson connected the image by Ter Borch of a grey horse in a stable, loosened from its bridle and being brushed (Related works, no. 3), to a 1601 German book which gives the meanings of animals. There a saying by Seneca is quoted: a golden bridle does not make a horse more noble than it is by itself.154 No one should dress up or be proud of their ancestors. Applied to the Ter Borch picture, where the horse’s coat is being brushed, it could mean that the brushing is done to bring out the horse’s inner nobility, and also be an admonition to modesty. Is The Chaff-cutter primarily a charming picture of idealized peasant life, or does it have a meaning comparable to that of the Ter Borch picture? Teniers is known to have moralizing messages hidden in his pictures, and the bridle lies very prominently on the foreground. However in the other picture the horse is being brushed, whereas in DPG142 it is just eating its fodder....

Cornelis PRONK

... ured posing his figures as here, with one arm resting parallel to the edge of the picture, and, framed by drapery, an architectural detail in the background (Related works, nos 1, 2) [2-3]: here there is what appears to be an elaborate (imaginary?) marble fireplace. It is curious that Pronk painted and signed this picture in 1714, as he was at the time still a pupil of Boonen, and was to become an independent master only in 1715.The sitter wears a scarf and a silk banyan, a loose robe of Asian cut known in Dutch as Japonsche rock (Japanese dress), that was worn indoors on informal occasions. There was a fashion for male portraits in such dress throughout Europe in the 18th century. His desk is littered with letters, receipts, a seal stamp and an hourglass, and he is writing in a cash book, which suggests that he is a merchant. His identity is unknown, but his features are somewhat similar to those of Jacob Meerman (1647–1712), in a portrait by Thomas van der Wilt (1659–1733; Related works, no. 3) [4]: if it is indeed him, the Dulwich picture would be a posthumous portrait, as Meerman died in 1712.The valuation by Thomas Agnew and Sons in 1949 assessed DPG615 at £175 (the cheapest of the sixteen Dulwich paintings then assessed was an Adriaen van de Velde at £100, and the most expensive Rembrandt’s Girl at a Window at £33,000).7...

Studio of David Teniers DPG321, DPG341

... ee DPG109, Related works, no. 4.)2b.II) (preparatory drawing for 2b.I) David Teniers II, A Peasant carrying a Long Rod over his Shoulder, graphite, 202 × 154 mm. BM, London, Oo,10.148.2442b.III) (print after 2b.I) ?Jacques Philippe Le Bas, A Peasant carrying a Long Rod over his Shoulder, 1750s, etching, 267 × 189 mm. BM, London, 2011,7041.1.2452c) Studio of David Teniers II, A Peasant carrying a Pole, monogrammed DT f , panel, c. 16.8 × 13 cm. Nottingham CastleMuseum and Art Gallery, 1904-109.2462d) attributed to David Teniers II, The Chimney-sweep, panel, 27 × 16 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau (stolen in 1989).2473) Hendrik Bary (after David Teniers II or Adriaen Brouwer?), Chimney-sweeper, engraving, 231 × 128 mm. RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP-P-BI-644 [3].2484) Charles Levasseur after David Teniers II, Le Frilleux [sic] (the chilly man: old bearded man, with fur hat and fur-trimmed coat, carrying brasier and stick), 1749–97, etching and engraving, 265 × 195 mm. BM, London, 1850,0713.151 [4].249A single figure hunched against the cold is walking to the right across a wintry landscape. Over his left shoulder he carries a long stick, the tool of a chimney-sweep. In the background are two houses. The picture has been seen as depicting Winter and sometimes paired with DPG341, thought to represent Autumn; but the pair to Winter would be Summer, and if the two pictures did represent those two seasons, the other two seasons would be missing. Desenfans owned a set of Four Seasons in 1802, but with a different Winter – an old man ‘dressed in fur, leaning with one hand, upon his stick, and holding in the other, a foot stove’:250 cf. an 18th-century print after Teniers (Related works, no. 4) [4]. He saw DPG321 and 341 not as seasons but as personifications of types of labourers: in the 1804 insurance list they are called ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ and ‘The Landlord’ and valued separately at £50. Later, however, the two pictures seem to have been made into a false pair: recent conservation revealed that the canvas of DPG321 had been extended on both sides to make it match the dimensions of DPG341. Bourgeois is the probable culprit (as with the false pairing of DPG76 and DPG95). It is unlikely that Teniers intended DPG321 to be a personification of Winter: rather, it is an independent genre scene, reflecting his interest in setting single figures in a landscape, where they could also illustrate different series, such as the Five Senses.A preparatory sketch of a chimney-sweep by Teniers in Amsterdam (Related works, no. ...

... ne of the Five Senses): a pedlar carrying a basket hung round his neck selling drinks, 1736, etching, 190 (trimmed) × 114 mm. BM, London, 1850,0713.41 [8].262Teniers produced several sets of pictures on the theme of the seasons, and in these Autumn is usually represented by a toper, as here. Similar figures can be seen in a set in the National Gallery, London (Related works, no. 1) [5], and in another set at auction in Brussels in 1930 (Related works, no. 2b); related to the latter is a painting at auction in London in 1990 (Related works, no. 2a) [6]. The description of Autumn in the Desenfans catalogue (as part of the set of the Four Seasons in his 1802 sale) sounds very much like the two Autumn pictures at auction in 1930 and 1990.263 In these groups the other seasons are personified consistently: Spring is shown as a gardener carrying a tree to plant, Summer as a peasant in a field, and Winter as an old man. A drawing in Detroit shows a similar man with glass and jug, but in reverse, and without the vine leaves (Related works, no. 3a) [7].Another possibility is that DPG341 is meant to represent Taste, as one of the Five Senses, of which Teniers also painted sets. In that case Taste is often depicted as a drinker with a glass and a bottle (Related works, no. 4a), but sometimes as a man with a basket round his neck, selling bottles (Related works, no. 4c) [8].As noted in the entry for DPG321, the Chimney-sweep, it seems likely that the two pictures were not originally paired; presumably they entered Desenfans’ collection separately....

David Teniers II DPG31, DPG33

... pe] with gipsies’ and ‘Ditto [Teniers]; A landscape with figures’); ?undated list of ‘Pictures to be Sold’: either nos 139 and 140 (Dressing Room: ‘Teniers – Landscape and Figures’, 20 gs each) or nos 312 and 313 (Little Parlour: ‘Teniers – Landscape & figures...

... as ‘idlers’ and ‘loungers’, such images of rustic neglect are probably meant not to comment on the idle and foolish behaviour of peasants but rather to suggest virtuous poverty or to idealize Arcadian peasant life.108The dominant brown tonalities of the village and the ground contrast with the blue sky and white clouds, echoed by the grey-blue costumes of the two peasants in the foreground. A keynote is provided by the mussel-shelling peasant’s red hat; such a colour scheme is very typical of Teniers’ work. Concerning the costume, the historian De Marly commented that ‘the mussel eater’s flat hat is Tudor period [sic] in ancestry, for peasants maintained styles a century or more after the court had discarded them’; although these are Flemish and not English peasants, she is probably right when she states, ‘Peasants wore brown and grays, and the men either knee-breeches or trousers. A lo...

Jacob van STAVERDEN

... he lower right corner. Previous recorded treatment: 1867, ‘revived’ and revarnished; 1953, cleaned and restored and frame re-gilded, Dr Hell; 2008 cleaned and restored, N. Ryder.RELATED WORKS1) Jacob van Staverden, Return from the Hunt, signed and dated J v Staveren fec. 1674, canvas, 66 x 50.5 cm. KMSKB, Brussels, 4152 [1].82...

Peter Paul Rubens DPG148

... face cleaned, examined (including X-radiograph of painting), losses filled and blistering areas consolidated, retouched, varnished, National Maritime Museum, E. Hamilton-Eddy.RELATED WORKS1a) Prime version (the completed altarpiece): Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St Ignatius of Loyola, c. 1612–20, canvas, 442 x 287 cm. Il Gesú/SS. Ambrogio e Andrea, Genoa [2].2061b) (sketch) Peter Paul Rubens, St Ignatius of Loyola (?) curing one possessed, present whereabouts unknown (Phillips, London, 3 May 1823, lot 73: ‘Rubens. Our Saviour curing one possessed of an evil spirit, a sketch for the famous picture in the church of the Annunciation at Genoa – this celebrated study was in the possession of the Gentile family at Genoa’).2071c) copy after DPG148 (? or after 1b), panel, 104 x 72 cm. Museen der Stadt Bamberg, 393D [3].2081d) David Wilkie after Peter Paul Rubens (1a), The Miracles of St Ignatius of Loyola, drawing in album, 54 pp., dimensions of album 265 x 210 mm, NGS, Edinburgh, D.4981.2092a) (modello for 2b) Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St Ignatius of Loyola, c. 1615–16, oak panel, 105.5 x 74 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 530 [4].2102b) (altarpiece for the Antwerp Jesuit Church) Peter Paul Rubens and studio, The Miracles of St Ignatius of Loyola, c. 1617–18, canvas, 535 x 395 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 517 [5].2112c) (in reverse) Marinus Robyn van der Goes after 2b, St Ignatius of Loyola cures a Possessed Man and Woman, 1630–39, engraving, 575 × 450 mm. RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP–P–OB–67.925.2123a) (modello for 3b) Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St Francis Xavier, c. 1616–17, panel, 104.5 x 72.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 528.2133b. (altarpiece for the Antwerp Jesuit Church) Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St Francis Xavier, c. 1617–18, canvas, 535 x 395 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 519.Other pictures by Rubens4) (for the high altar) Peter Paul Rubens, Circumcision, 1605, canvas, 400 x 225 cm. Il Gesú/Santi Ambrogio e Andrea, Genoa.2155) Peter Paul Rubens, Marchese Nicolò Pallavicini, 1604, canvas, 105 x 92 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (previously on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).216DetailsThe Blessed Ignatius, since 1622 St Ignatius6a) Peter Paul Rubens, ‘St. Ignatius attired in his priestly habit, in the attitude of ecstacy and inspired devotion; Rubens has treated this subject in a grand stile, the colouring truly harmonious, and painted with a spirited and flowing pencil’, present whereabouts unknown (Benjamin van der Gucht sale, Christie’s, 12 March 1796 (Lugt 5420), lot 75; bt Sir Francis Bourgeois, £39.18.2176b) Peter Paul Rubens, St Ignatius of Loyola, c. 1620–22, canvas, 223.5 x 138.4 cm. Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, M.1975.03.P.2186c) Adriaen Collaert after Juan de Mesa, Five Scenes of the Life of the Blessed Ignatius in Barcelona (part of Vita beati patris Ignatii Loyolae, Antwerp 1610, no. 7 of 15 prints), Latin inscriptions, engraving, 262 × 368 mm (sheet). RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP-P-1963-287.219The washerwoman7a) Adriaen Collaert after Juan de Mesa, Three Scenes from the Life of the Blessed Ignatius in Spain (part of Vita beati patris Ignatii Loyolae, Antwerp 1610, no. 9 of 15 prints), Latin inscriptions, engraving, 266 × 368 mm (sheet). RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP-P-1963-288.2207b) Cornelis Galle I, The Miracle of the Washerwoman, engraving (fig. 48 of Vita beati P. Ignatii Loiolae, Rome 1609). Biblioteca Instituti Historici S. I., Rome.221The possessed woman8a) Peter Paul Rubens, The Martyrdom of two Saints, pen and brown ink on grey paper, 348 x 324 mm. BvB, Rotterdam, MB 5002.2228b) (modello) Peter Paul Rubens, Roman Catholic Austria, attacked by its Enemies, 1620–22, panel, 51 x 66.5 cm. Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 836.4.52.2238c) (modello) Peter Paul Rubens, Miracles of St Francis of Paola, c. 1627–8, panel, 110.5 × 79.4 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 91.PB.50.2248d) Roman, Medea Sarcophagus, marble, h 65 cm. Antikenmuseum, Basel, 217.2258e) Peter Paul Rubens after an Antique cameo, A Dancing Satyr, c. 1600–1608, pen and brown ink, 54 x 37 mm. BM, London, Oo,9.20.e.2268f) Anthony van Dyck, The Arrest of a Man, part of a Study for the Road to Cavalry, black chalk, with pen and brown ink, 154 x 202 mm (sight measurement) (sheet 19 verso and 20 recto in the Italian sketchbook). BM. 1957,1214.207.19v and 20r.2278g) (attributed to) Artus Quellinus I, Frenzy, c. 1660, sandstone, 295 × 75 x 75 cm. RM, Amsterdam, BK-AM-38.228Confusion in provenance9) After Peter Paul Rubens, An Allegory showing the Effects of War (‘The Horrors of War’), paper on canvas, 47.6 x 76 cm. NG, London, NG279.229Compositions by other ...

... udes a possessed man.240 There are more figures in the Antwerp altarpiece, not surprisingly since it is about 1 m higher and 1 m wider than the Genoa picture.As usual with Rubens, motifs are found elsewhere as well. In a painting in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (Related works, no. 6b) the full-length figure of the Blessed (or perhaps already Saint)241 Ignatius holding a book has the same pose as in DPG148, but his glance is shifted significantly upwards, as in the Genoa picture; he has a halo, which he lacks in the Genoa picture.242 The possessed girl is a motif that could have been derived from Antique objects such as a cameo and a sarcophagus, which Rubens used again for instance in later compositions in Montpellier and the Getty Museum (Related works, nos 8a–f). A famous statue of Frenzy was made for the Amsterdam Dolhuys (madhouse), probably by the southern Netherlandish sculptor Artus Quellinus (Related works, no. 8g), who must have known Rubens’s painting. The woman with three children, symbolizing Charity, also appears in Rubens’s work, such as the altarpiece for St Bavo in Ghent (see DPG40A–B, Related works, no. 7b).The provenance of DPG148 is uncertain between Rubens and the Desenfans Insurance list of 1804. We do not know how many studies Rubens made for the Genoa altarpiece (in general he made at least two studies, a bozzetto and a modello: see for instance under DPG125), and whether he sent all of them to the Pallavicini or kept one or more in his studio. It is certain that since 1768 at least one of the sketches was in the third room of the Palazzo Spinola di San Luca-Gentile in Genoa, probably from the Pallavicini family. Until now several authors assumed that the Rubens sketch acquired by Buchanan in 1803 in Genoa came from the Pietro Gentile collection, and that it was shortly afterwards purchased by Desenfans. However the Buchanan letters, written between 1802 and 1805, seem to show that he acquired a different Rubens sketch in 1803 (now in the National Gallery; Related works, no. 9) and that he finally succeeded in purchasing the Gentile picture of the Blessed Ignatius (Related works, no. 1b) in 1805. It appeared in a London auction in 1823, since when there is no trace. We have to look for the provenance of Desenfans’ St Ignatius in 18th-century sale catalogues where several pictures of St Ignatius by Rubens are mentioned, such as one in Brussels in 1765 and one in London in 1791. In any case DPG148 features in Desenfans’ Insurance list of 1804.A small copy in the Städtischen Kunstsammlungen Bamberg, which seems to date from around 1800, was recently brought to my attention (Related works, no. 1c) [3].243 It is not after the prime version in Genoa. The position of Ignatius looks more like the one in the Dulwich picture; the man in the foreground holding the frantic woman is dressed in green, as in the Dulwich modello, not red as in Genoa; the two standing children in the middle and the baby lying down are different. In Genoa the baby’s head is to the right, whereas in the other two pictures it is to the left. However there are also differences between the Bamberg picture and the modello in Dulwich. In general the figures and architecture there are so elaborate that it seems unlikely the copyist saw the painting in Dulwich. And while it is appealing to think that the Bamberg picture is a copy of the lost sketch from Genoa (Related works, no.1b) that does not seem likely: Rubens usually made a very general bozzetto first and then a more elaborated modello (see under DPG125). DPG148 is such an elaborated modello. Rubens did not make sketches more detailed than this. It is thus more likely that the artist of the Bamberg picture saw a painting that was a different version of Rubens’s composition, probably from Rubens’s workshop. However, nothing is known of a third large-scale Jesuit altarpiece that might have been the model for the Bamberg copyist.244...

Peter Paul Rubens DPG451

... S KEIJE FECIT, panel, 180 x 130 cm. Zanchi collection, Belmont (Switzerland).1558d.III) Michiel Coxie, touched up by Peter Paul Rubens, after 8d.II, Abel slain by Cain, c. 1608–10, red chalk, red ink, 213 x 207 mm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD.43-1961.1568d.IV) Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snijders, Prometheus bound, 1611/12–18, canvas, 242.6 x 209.6 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, W1950–3–1, purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1950.1579a) (copy after DPG451 (Adonis) and after a figure in 9b), Two reclining Youths, canvas, 47 x 68 cm. Private collection, South America.1589b) Peter Paul Rubens, The Defeat of Sennacherib, c. 1617, panel, 97.4 x 122.8 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 326.15910) Roman copy of a Pergamese original, Dead Amazon. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples [5].160Head of Adonis11a) Peter Paul Rubens after an Antique coin, Alexander the Great as Jupiter Ammon, c. 1606, ink and bodycolour on card, 61 x 49 mm. Mrs Karl J. Reddy collection, Ephara, Pa.16111b) Peter Paul Rubens (?) after a print by Paulus Pontius I after Peter Paul Rubens, after an Antique cameo (sardonyx), Germanicus Caesar, 1613–40, brush in brown and grey, pen in brown, with white oil on paper; contre-épreuve of an engraving by Paulus Pontius I, 80 x 60 mm (oval). RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP-T-1934-4.16211c) Peter Paul Rubens, Head of Alexander the Great, pen and brown ink over black chalk, washed, 59 x 50 mm. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, III, 162 (second from below).16311d) Peter Paul Rubens, Head of a Hellenistic Ruler, pen and brown ink, 33 x 31 mm. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, III, 162 (bottom centre).16411e) Peter Paul Rubens (?) and Jacob de Wit, Portrait of a Roman Emperor, probably Nero, red chalk, brush in red, 109 x 96 mm. RPK, RM, Amsterdam, RP-T-00-440 [6].165Crouching female figures12a) Roman copy after a Hellenistic bronze statue, attributed to Doidalses of Bithynia, Crouching Venus, marble, h. 78 cm. Uffizi, Florence, 188.16612b) Roman copy after a Hellenistic bronze statue, attributed to Doidalses of Bithynia, Crouching Venus (‘Lely’s Venus’), 125 cm. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 69746, on loan to BM [7].16712c) Roman copy after a Hellenistic bronze statue, attributed to Doidalses of Bithynia, Crouching Venus, Louvre, Paris.16812d) Variation on the Crouching Venus by Doidalses of Bithynia, Roman, Crouching Venus with Turtle, marble, h. 128 cm. Prado, Madrid, 33E.16912e) Marcantonio Raimondi, Naked Venus crouching at her Bath, c. 1510–27, engraving, 223 x 146 mm. BM, London, H,2.68 [8].17012f) Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel I, Diana and her Nymphs setting out for the Hunt, c. 1620, panel, 57 x 98 cm. Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, no. 68.3.1.17112g) Peter Paul Rubens, Study for Mary Magdalen, black chalk, heightened with white, 335 x 243 mm. BM, London, 1912,1214.5.17212h) Jan Collaert after Peter Paul Rubens, title page for H. Rosweyde, ’t Vaders Boeck, Antwerp 1617. Royal Library, Brussels, III 6035 C.173Boy with a goose13a) Roman copy of a Hellenistic type by Boethos, early 2nd century BCE, Boy standing with a Goose, marble. Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome.17413b) Rubens’s Cantoor (Willem Panneels) after Rubens, Three Studies of the Child embracing a Goose, inscribed dees drij kinnekens sijn goed van omtreck / ende hebbe dees oock gehaelt vant cantoor (these three children have a good silhouette; and I had fetched these too from the office), black, red and white chalk, pen and brown ink, 203 x 330 mm. SMK, Copenhagen, Rubens’s Cantoor, III, 23 [9].175Other artist14) Pieter Codde, Venus mourning Adonis, signed Pr. Codde, oil on panel, 31 x 32 cm. Hermitage, St Petersburg, 3150.176...

... that time the prime version was in the collection of the famous London collector, patron and designer Thomas Hope (1769–1831).177 Possibly also a copy, now dismembered and formerly in France, was made after DPG451 (Related works, no. 1b). The dogs in the sketch are without doubt by Rubens. Those in the Jerusalem painting are at...

Peter Paul Rubens DPG285

... iously Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, GK I 2284; in 1720 sent to Berlin; in 1632 in Noordeinde Palace, The Hague).5722e.II) (studio of) Peter Paul Rubens, Mars and Venus, canvas, 167 x 186 cm. Cassa di Risparmio di Calabria e Lucania, Cosenza.5732e.III) Rubens’s Cantoor (Willem Panneels) after Peter Paul Rubens (2e.I), Mars disarmed by Venus, 1628–30, black chalk, pen, brown ink on yellowish paper, c. 139 x c. 148 mm. SMK, Copenhagen, Rubens’s Cantoor.5742e.IV) (in reverse) Anonymous Flemish after Peter Paul Rubens (2e.I), Mars and Venus, c. 1650–1700, inscriptions in Dutch, etching, 406 (trimmed) x 460 mm. BM, London, 1891,0414.855.5752f) Peter Paul Rubens (and studio?), Allegory of Peace (Minerva defends Pax against Mars), c. 1630–32, canvas, 231 x 340 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 343.5762g) Peter Paul Rubens, The Victorious Hero takes Occasion to conclude Peace, black chalk, watercolour and bodycolour, 383 x 477 mm. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Weimar, KK 5068.577Copies after DPG285 (or a similar composition)3a) (modello? or after Rubens?), oil on panel, 43.1 x 31.8 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (N. Fischmann, London, 1954).5783b) Engraving by Bolswert.5793c) Unknown French artist (previously attributed to Jean-Antoine Watteau) after DPG285 (?), Venus, Mars and Cupid, red and black chalk and bistre wash, 200 x 148 mm. Musée Bertrand, Châteauroux [4].5803d) Copy (after DPG285; Mars in different armour; Cupid completely different): Venus, Mars and Cupid, canvas (?), 101 x 77 cm. Maurice Lecomte collection, Rouen.5813e) Copy (after DPG285; with the figure of Cupid in a different pose): Venus, Mars and Cupid, panel, 40.5 x 25 cm. In 1996 in the Wolfgang Körner collection, Vienna (formerly Gustav Schütz collection, Vienna, Ehrenmitglied der Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien, 1937).5823f) Copy (after DPG285): Venus, Mars and Cupid, canvas (?), 163 x 114 cm. D. Heinemann, Munich (Photo RKD).3g) Copy: in George Scharf sketchbook, Venus, Mars and Cupid, 1859. National Portrait Gallery, London, 57 NPG7/3/4/2/68, p. 18 [5].5833h) Copy (after DPG285): possibly William Etty, Venus, Mars and Cupid, canvas, 78.5 x 62.5 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (Douglas Chome Wilson, 2013).5843i) Copy (after DPG285): c. 1900, canvas, unknown dimensions. Present whereabouts unknown (Photo RKD).5853j) Copy (after DPG285; only Venus and Cupid): Venus and Cupid, canvas, 185 x 122 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (sale 29 Oct. 1928; M. Arot Freviez collection, ? [unknown city in France or Belgium] 29,000 fr.).3k) Copy (after DPG285): David Wilkie, Mars, Venus and Cupid, panel, 10 x 11½ p. [sic], present whereabouts unknown (sale Lambert-Théodore Nieuwenhuys, Brussels, Étienne le Roy, 11–12 April 1855, lot 78).586Earlier compositions by other artists4a) Titian, Allegory of Marriage (‘Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos’), c. 1531–2, canvas, 123 x 107 cm. Louvre, Paris, 754.5874b) Jacopo Tintoretto, Vulcan, Venus and Amor, c. 1550–55, canvas, 85 x 197.4 cm. Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1912, no. 3.5884c) Jacopo Tintoretto, The Origin of the Milky Way, c. 1575, canvas, 149.4 x 168 cm. NG, London, NG1313.5894d) Paolo Veronese, Mars and Venus united by Love, 1570s, canvas, 205.7 x 161 cm. MMA, New York, John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1910, 10.189.5904e) Otto van Veen (Vaenius) and (?) Peter Paul Rubens, Typus Inconsulte Iuventute or Allegory of the Temptations of Youth, c. 1595, panel, 146 x 212 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, NM 666.591DetailsVenus5a) Albrecht Dürer, The Penance of St John Chrysostom, c. 1496, monogram AD, engraving, 183 x 120 mm. BM, London, 1868,0822.186 [6].5925b.I) Titian, Venus with a Mirror, c. 1555, canvas, 124.5 x 105.5 cm. NGA, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.34.5935b.II) Rubens and workshop of Titian (5b.I), Venus and Cupid with a Mirror, canvas, 137 x 111 cm. Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, 1957.5.5945c.I) Athenian (2nd–1st century BC), Hellenistic copy after Praxiteles (c. 350 BC), Medici Venus, marble, h 153 cm. Uffizi, Florence, 1914, no. 224.5955c.II) Hendrick Goltzius, Venus Pudica, c. 1591, black chalk on blue paper, white heightening, 337 x 118 mm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, K III 032.5965c.III) Roman (AD 100–200) after a Hellenistic copy after Praxiteles (c. 350 BC), Mazarin Venus, marble, h 184 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 54.AA.11.5975c.IV) Early Antonine copy of a late Hellenistic statue derived from the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, Capitoline Venus, marble, h 187 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome.5985d) Sostanza, woodcut, in Ripa 1603, p. 468.5995e) Jean Goujon, Octagonal fountain, woodcut in Colonna 1561, p. 23.6005f) Rembrandt, A Nude Woman with a Snake, c. 1637, red chalk touched with white, 24.7 x 13.7 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 81.GB.27.6015g) (attributed to) Jan Boeckhorst after 2c (Rubens’s Meleager and Atalante), Mary Magdalen, signed P. Rubens (in another hand), brush, black chalk, brown wash, 23.1 x 15.8 cm. Département des Arts Graphiques, Louvre, Paris, 20429.602MarsSee no. 4a.Cupid6) Roman, relief of Tellus Mater with two babies on the eastern side of the Ara Pacis, 13–9 BC, marble. Ara Pacis Museum, Rome [7].603Later compositions by other artists7a) Jan Lievens, Mars and Venus, 1653, canvas, 146 x 136 cm. Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, since 2001 in the Oranienburg, GK I 2573.6047b) Luca Giordano, Venus, Cupid and Mars, 1663, panel, 152 x 129 cm. Museo di Capodimonte (Farnese collection), Naples.7c) Luca Giordano, Rubens painting the Allegory of Peace, c. 1660, canvas, 337 x 414 cm. Prado, Madrid, P190.605Lent to the RA to be copied in 1816, 1831, 1837, 1840, 1851 and 1877....

... Veronese’s Venus and Mars (1570s; Related works, no. 4d), where Mars is shown from the side and being disarmed (and also has a bare forearm); Venus is also expressing milk from one of her breasts, but there is no Cupid to receive the milk. Rubens shows the influence of Titian in the figure of Mars, which is composed with numerous sweeping and rapid brushstrokes; in Titian’s Allegory of Marriage (‘Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos’), now in the Louvre (c. 1530–35; Related works, no. 4a), for example, we see ‘Alfonso d’Avalos’ in the same position as Mars, not with a bare forearm, but wearing a red shirt under his armour. That painting was in the royal collection in London when Rubens was there.624 The figure and features of Venus recall Titian’s nudes, such as the Venus with the Mirror, now in Washington (Related works, no. 5b.I); she also has her forearms crossed over her body, but in reverse to DPG285, a motif that Rubens used again for Atalante in his composition of Meleager and Atalante (Related works, no. 2c.I–II).Another visual source for Venus with her forearms almost parallel and crossed over her body are the many Roman copies after the Aphrodite by Praxiteles (c. 395–c. 330 BC), such as the Medici Venus and the Capitoline Venus (Related works, nos 5c.I–IV). The many references to older imagery, especially to Antique sculpture, raises the question whether the audience was supposed to recognize these quotations (see also under DPG451). Rubens’s pictures may have been discussed, for instance in his studio in York House in London, where Gerbier lived and where the collection of the Duke of Buckingham, who was murdered in 1628 (see also under DPG143), was still visible.625 Heinen in 2011 suggests that Rubens as a Spanish envoy used his pictures, and the conversation around them, as a means to win the trust of English courtiers in his attempts to make peace between England and Spain.626The picture that we know Rubens made in London is Peace and War, now in the National Gallery. It and DPG285 are closely related. We have already noted that Venus looks very much like the seated Pax, Goddess of Peace (Related works, no. 2b) [3]. The figures in the centre of the National Gallery picture are almost as large, but the figures are closer together in DPG285. Pax is suckling a young boy, who is standing next to her instead of seeming to be ‘defying gravity or slipping backwards’ (see Technical Notes) as in DPG285. The boy is her son Pluto, who represents wealth. Other interpretations see her as Venus, who nourishes her son Cupid, referring more generally to fertility.627 The difference between the two pictures is that in the National Gallery composition Mars is chased away by Minerva since he endangers peace, whereas in DPG285 Mars is tamed.628 That Rubens had taken inspiration from the Tellus relief for the babies in DPG285 and the National Gallery picture, two pictures about the desirability of peace and what is called in Latin ex pace ubertas (prosperity comes from peace), is very appropriate, since Tellus represented Peace, brought about by the Roman Emperor Augustus.629 According to Heinen 2011 it would seem logical that DPG285 was made as a starting point for the Allegory of War and Peace, thus while Rubens was still in London. But the technical evidence, in particular the different nature of the ground layers in the two pictures, suggests that Venus, Mars and Cupid was not painted in England: it must have been created either before or after Rubens’s visit. In support of Heinen 2011, on the other hand, the argument could be that Rubens had taken prepared canvases from Flanders to London, on one of which he had painted DPG285, but they had run out when he started on War and Peace. In any case it ‘seems likely that Rubens had large pieces of prepared canvas in his studio, which he joined as required’ (see Technical Notes).One of the most controversial aspects of the picture in the 19th century was that milk was spurting from Venus’s breast into Cupid’s open mouth. C. J. Cockburn, the Justice adjudicating Queen v. Hicklin in 1867, the case that provided the first legal standard for determining obscenity in both England and the USA, asked at the trial: ‘What can be more obscene than many pictures publicly exhibited, as the Venus in the Dulwich Gallery?’630 According to Mrs Jameson, the milk was painted away by Bourgeois. When it came back is not known, but Burchard, visiting the Gallery on 26 May 1939, saw two (or three?) rays of milk.631 But also in general this picture was considered ugly, and expecially the Venus in it, typically Flemish and typically Rubens (‘large and fat’).632 Comments include ‘naked country lass, fat and plump’ (annotation in a 1796 auction catalogue); ‘that gross, boisterous, and altogether unclassical manner’ and ‘the effect of the whole is extremely repulsive’ (Patmore 1824); ‘sadly devoid of those ideal forms of beauty and expression so indispensable to give value and interest to classic and poetical subjects’ (Smith 1829–42, in 1830); ‘the forms being in some parts even vulgar, as for instance the feet of Venus’ (Richter & Sparkes 1880). Nevertheless DPG285 was lent six times to the Royal Academy Schools to be copied (in 1816, 1831, 1837, 1840, 1851 and 1877): pupils could learn something here. We do not know of copies or influence in 19th-century London (as with DPG127, Van Dyck)....

Abraham STORCK

... comparable to the one featured at auction in 1910 in Amsterdam (Related works, no. 3).The subject of the scene is uncertain, but a version with the Arthur Tooth and Sons Gallery in 1950 was then said (incorrectly) to depict the Duke of Marlborough’s visit to the Dutch fleet in the Amstel in 1701 (Related works, no. 7). In the centre middle distance can be seen two more British ships. In the foreground a rowing barge with eight passengers is drawing close to the shore and is being met by a number of figures. Its bows are painted with white swans on a blue background, while at its stern are a tricolour pennant with a diagonal white band across it and, below this, a red and white striped flag, the symbol of Hoorn or Dordrecht. The large ensign at the stern of the Dutch warship in the centre is that of the States General of the Netherlands, used from c. 1650, while the tricolour hoisted at the mainmast and the three lanterns on the stern indicate that an admiral is aboard. The red lions carved on the stern can indicate the Admiralty on the Maze, which was located in Rotterdam and which had a red lion in the logo.10 The English yacht, identified by the pre-1707 Union Jack, would also seem to be carrying an important person: the red ensign with a St George’s cross at the main mast indicates a senior admiral, while the other pennant indicates a commissioned ship. In the distance to the right are two further Dutch men-of-war, that in the foreground flying a Dutch ensign and with the flag of a red lion rampant on gold.The composition, with a variety of ships at anchor, is typical of Storck’s usual manner. The small boat just off the foreshore, which leads the viewer’s eye into the picture, is a particularly characteristic feature. The large number of copies by Storck and his workshop suggest that the subject was thought to be significant....

Prague School DPG353

... the right edge and many discoloured retouchings. The varnish is yellowed and very shiny. Previous recorded treatment: 1952–5, Dr. Hell.RELATED WORKS1a) Joseph Heintz I, Satyrs and Nymphs, signed and dated IO HE[in ligature]intz. F. 1599, copper, 24 x 32 cm (oval). Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1579 [1].141b) Preliminary study for 1a (?): Joseph Heintz I, Satyrs and Nymphs, 1599 or before, pen and black ink, brush and black washes, red chalk, heightened with white bodycolour, 235 x 320 mm. MMA, New York, 2007.174 [2].15...

... scene. Reading from the left, the painting depicts Triton holding what seems to be the tail of a large fish, two female nudes (perhaps Nereids) separated by the head of a dog, and an old man holding flying red drapery. The inclusion of the dog would suggest that some specific incident was intended, although whether at sea or in a river is unclear. It is presumably significant that one of the female nudes hold...