Peter Paul Rubens

c. 1620

The head and chest of a man with pale pink skin, a honey-blond beard, and curly, mahogany-brown hair around a receding hairline fills this vertical portrait painting. His body and head are tipped to our left and he looks at or toward us with olive-green eyes. He has a long, pointed nose with lines around the nostrils leading down to his sweeping mustache. His soft beard below is trimmed to a point. His full, salmon-pink lips are closed. Faint sage green shades the inner corners of his eyes and the dips at his temples, beneath a shiny, balding head. His brown locks float around his face as if lifted by a breeze. His shoulders are enveloped by a chocolate-brown cloak, probably fur, and a swipe of vivid white paint at the back of his neck suggests a high, white collar. The background is mottled with rust-red, copper, and gold. The portrait is loosely painted in some areas, especially the fur cloak and background.

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With a slight tilt of his head, Peter Paul Rubens looks out at the viewer, his gaze warm yet penetrating. The image is surprisingly intimate. Rubens, a diplomat and court painter to the regents of the Southern Netherlands, Albert and Isabel, is here shown without the exquisite attire of his gentlemanly status. Instead, he wears a simple fur cloak over a black jacket and white shirt with his hair and beard curly and unkempt. Were this a more formal portrait, he would be wearing the gold chain he received when he was appointed court painter as well as the large-brimmed hat he often donned in self-portraits to hide his baldness. The remarkable informality suggests that a close associate of the master, probably a member of his workshop, executed the Gallery's painting.

This attribution is supported by technical and stylistic evidence. Analysis of the ground and imprimatura layer reveals a manner of preparation consistent with that of Rubens and his workshop. Technical examination of the tree rings in the panel further indicates that it was available for use around 1620, a date that accords well with Rubens's apparent age, 43. However, certain weaknesses in the modeling of the ears and lips, which lack real form and structure, and the surprisingly coarse brushstrokes found in the hair and fur cloak have made it difficult to identify a specific hand, but clearly not the hand of the master himself.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Timken Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 41.3 x 33.7 cm (16 1/4 x 13 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1960.6.33

Artwork history & notes

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]."

Associated Names

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.

2013

  • Rubens: Inspired by Italy and Established in Antwerp, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo; Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art; Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 2013, no. 45, repro.

2015

  • From Rubens to the Grand Tour, Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, 2015, unnumbered catalogue, fig. IV.

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

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. 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. dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1976: 67-69, 78, 80, 337-339, 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, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 214-218, color repro.

2020

  • Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 139.

Wikidata ID

Q20176994

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