National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Peter Paul Rubens
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

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Provenance

S. Robinson, Esq., London.[1] art market, London; private collection, United States; purchased 1926 by (P. Jackson Higgs, New York); sold 1927 to William R. Timken [1866-1949], New York;[2] by inheritance to his widow, Lillian Guyer Timken [1881-1959], New York; bequest 1960 to NGA.

[1] An Antwerp inventory of the estate of Alexander Voet, dated 18 February 1689, contained a work that was possibly identical to the Gallery's painting: "Een tronie kael van hooft, van van Dyck tot Rubbens geschildert" ("a portrait with a bold head, painted of Rubens by Van Dyck") (in Jean Denucé, The Antwerp art-galleries; inventories of the art collections in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th centuries, Antwerp, 1932: 312). However, NGA 1960.6.33 has certain weaknesses that raise questions about an attribution to Van Dyck, and the possibility is strong that the Gallery's painting is a contemporary replica of Van Dyck's lost original.

[2] Frank E. Washburn Freund discusses the painting's earliest known provenance in several articles, each with slightly varying details. In Frank E. Washburn Freund, "A Self-Portrait of Peter Paul Rubens, International Studio 84 (August 1926): 25, he writes about "...this newly discovered painting, which was recently acquired by the gallery of P. Jackson Higgs from an English source..." In Frank E. Washburn Freund, "An Unknown Self-Portrait by Rubens," Art in America 16 (1927): 3-11, he writes both that "the picture...was formerly in the possession of Mr. S. Robinson, St. James's, London, and recently became part of the collection of Mr. Wm. R. Timken in New York," and that it "was found in a London art store a year or two ago and sold to an American collector." In "The Romance of a Rubens' Self-Portrait," a typed manuscript in NGA curatorial files written in 1927 after the exhibition at P. Jackson Higgs that included the painting, he writes that: "The portrait, ...as far as could be ascertained, once belonged to the collection of S. Robinson, Esq. of St. James', London. From England [the London art store where Freund found the painting] it found its way to America where, for a time, it formed part of a private collection till it came into the possession of the above-mentioned gallery [P. Jackson Higgs]."

Exhibition History

1927
Exhibition Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of Peter Paul Rubens, P. Jackson Higgs Gallery, New York, 1927, unnumbered catalogue, as Portrait of the Artist by Rubens.
1936
Sixty Paintings and Some Drawings by Peter Paul Rubens, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1936, no. 23, as Self-Portrait by Rubens.
1998
A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 50, fig. 5.

Bibliography

1926
Washburn Freund, Frank E. "A Self-Portrait of Peter Paul Rubens." International Studio 84 (August 1926): 25, cover repro., as by Rubens.
1927
Washburn Freund, Frank E. "An Unknown Self-Portrait by Rubens." Art in America 16, no. 1 (December 1927): 3-11, fig. 1, as by Rubens.
1944
Evers, Hans Gerhard. Rubens und sein Werk. Brussels, 1944: 332, 336, as by Rubens.
1947
Goris, Jan-Albert and Julius S. Held. Rubens in America. New York, 1947: 46, no. A 15, as not by Rubens.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 119, as School of Rubens.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 106, repro., as School of Rubens.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 316, repro., as School of Rubens.
1976
Daugherty, Frances Perry. The Self-Portraits of Peter Paul Rubens: Some Problems in Iconography. Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1976: 67-69, 78, 80, 337-336, no. 11-9, repro., as School of Rubens.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 363, repro.
1995
Lurie, Doron J. Van Dyke and His Age. Exh. cat. Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Tel Aviv, 1995: 88, as by Rubens.
2005
Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 214-218, color repro.

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