PETER PAUL RUBENS
R ubens went to Italy in May 1600 and soon was invited to the court of the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga, where he remained for eight years. His position enabled him to spend time in Rome but whether he met Caravaggio remains unknown. While painting Saint Gregory in Adoration Before the Virgin with Child, with Saints Domitilla, Maurus, and Papianus for Santa Maria
in Vallicella, Rubens was able to study carefully Caravaggio’s The Entombment , one of the most poignant works in the same church. This painting had an incredible impact on Rubens, who made two versions of it, which today are in Ottawa and in London. In 1620, Rubens led a campaign to acquire Caravaggio’s Madonna of the Rosary for the church of Saint Paul in Antwerp (today Kunsthis- torisches Museum, Vienna), another proof of his admiration.
Although Rubens made the painting in this exhibition upon his return to Flanders, it betrays his Italian experience. The stark light hitting the body of Christ, the brilliant white of his loincloth against the dark stormy sky, and the elongated suffering body all convey the drama of his humanity and sacrifice. This panel is believed to be have been a modello kept in Rubens’s studio for his apprentices to study and copy.
PETER PAUL RUBENS
(b. Siegen, 1577; d. Antwerp, 1640) Christ on the Cross , ca. 1610 Oil on panel 45 x 30 ₃ ⁄4 inches Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Entombment of Christ , 1603–4. Oil on canvas, 118 ₁ ⁄8 x 79 ₁₅ ⁄16 inches. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City.
Peter Paul Rubens, The Entombment of Christ (after Caravaggio), ca. 1612–14. Oil on panel, 34 ₃ ⁄4 x 26 ₃ ⁄16 inches. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1956, 6431.
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