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Lot Essay
This picture fetched a high sum, against fairly low expectations, when it was offered in these Rooms in 1942, and it was to be soon accepted as an autograph work by Rubens by the leading authority on the artist of his generation, Dr. Ludwig Burchard. He identified the picture with that which had belonged to the great ébéniste Charles Cressent in Paris for much of the eighteenth century, which Smith (J. Smith, Catalogue Raisonné, 1830, II, Rubens, p. 165, no. 570) misreading the title page of the Cressent sale of 1749 - in which the vendor was described as 'ébéniste des Palais du feu S.A.R. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans' (a post Cressent had held from 1720) - stated was from a Palais Royal sale (sic) of that year. Burchard, following Cressent, believed that the picture preceeded the great Battle of Amazons (121 x 165.5 cm) in the Munich Alte Pinakothek.
The Amazons were a mythical race of warlike women who lived on the banks of the river Thermodon; conflict with Greek heroes - as between their Queen Penthesileia and Achilles or between Hercules and Theseus and Hippolyte - were the stuff of classical legend that fascinated the young Rubens (Rubens: A Master in the Making, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London, 2005, nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5). The artist's most dramatic and refined treatment of it was to be the later Munich picture of circa 1618. But it is highly unlikely that Cressent's and Burchard's views that the present picture preceeded the Munich masterpiece is correct; Konrad Renger (K. Renger & C. Denk, Flämische Malerei des Barock in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich and Cologne, 2002, pp. 354-55) has described it as a pastiche inspired by the print, requested by Rubens to be made after it by his specialist engraver, Lucas Vorsterman.
This fine print, on six sheets and measuring 85.9 x 119 cms, is dated 1623 (D. Bodart, Rubens e L'Incisione, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 1977, no. 137). The reproductive print is typically in reverse of the prototype, and the painting is indeed evidently inspired by it. Motifs are taken from the print, re-arranged and modified, while other are introduced afresh. Thus the bridge (now over a narrower river, taken by some as the Thermodon) has been retained, but the main scene of combat between a Greek horseman and foot soldier and a resisting Amazon has been formally simplified and moved to the left foreground, and replaced by the troupe of Greek cavalry which was originally galloping onto it. The bolting horse dragging its rider on the left of the bridge now appears in the middle-ground to the right. The two dead Amazons lying on the river bank in the foreground have been retained in their original positions.
Also after Rubens is the figure of a recumbent Greek soldier propped up on his elbow in the left foreground. This figure was not devised as a Greek soldier for the Battle of the Amazons, but as a huntsman introduced in the Crocodile and Hippopotamus Hunt, which the artist had executed a few years earlier for Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and which after many vicissitudes is still in Bavaria in the Alte Pinakothek. The composition would have been known in Antwerp, as a copy, probably from Rubens's studio, remained in the city: it appears on the wall of a later, 17th century depiction of an Antwerp collector's cabinet (A. Balis. CRLB, XVIII (II), Hunting Scenes, 1986, under no. 5 and fig. 45).
Rubens heightened the drama of the encounter by silhouetting the melée on a bridge against the sky; here it is set against wooded mountains. The hilltop town on the left was reminiscent for Burchard of Tivoli. As he recognised, the landscape seems to be by a different hand from that responsible for the figures.
Neither the handling of the landscape nor the figures is particularly close to Rubens or to the manner practised in his studio in the second and third decades of the century. Indeed the dog, introduced in the right hand corner, seems to be the work of an artist at some distance from him. Dr. Joost Vander Auwera has kindly pointed to similarities with the grisaille modelli for a tapestry series painted by Erasmus Quellinus in the 1640s (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, in J.P. de Bruyn, Erasmus II Quellinus, Freren, 1988, nos. 118-125a). These seem to be on the whole more sophisticated works.
The artist has yet to be identified, and may never be, but he seems certainly to have been active in Antwerp, and his manner is not unlike that of Caspar van den Hoecke, father of the more famous Jan, whose identified oeuvre is small, although he was active for much of the first half of the seventeenth century, not dying until 1648. The handling of the landscape is reminiscent of Jan Tilens (1584-1630) born and presumed chiefly active in Antwerp, although he may have visited Italy as is suggested by a Capriccio View of the Ruins of Palatine, Rome (Die Flämische Landschaft, exhibition catalogue, Essen & Vienna, 2003-4, no. 120).
The bright colour range used for the figures and their hard edged delineation make it likely that this painting was executed not long after the publication of Vorsterman's print in 1623 and before 1630, if Tilens was responsible for the landscape. Rubens's Battle of the Amazons may have been well known in Antwerp as it was owned by Cornelis van der Gest and is prominently displayed in Willem van Haecht's depiction of his collection (Antwerp, Rubenshuis); but the painter of the present, striking picture and his intended patron seem to have admired it through the vehicle of Vorsterman's print.
The Amazons were a mythical race of warlike women who lived on the banks of the river Thermodon; conflict with Greek heroes - as between their Queen Penthesileia and Achilles or between Hercules and Theseus and Hippolyte - were the stuff of classical legend that fascinated the young Rubens (Rubens: A Master in the Making, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London, 2005, nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5). The artist's most dramatic and refined treatment of it was to be the later Munich picture of circa 1618. But it is highly unlikely that Cressent's and Burchard's views that the present picture preceeded the Munich masterpiece is correct; Konrad Renger (K. Renger & C. Denk, Flämische Malerei des Barock in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich and Cologne, 2002, pp. 354-55) has described it as a pastiche inspired by the print, requested by Rubens to be made after it by his specialist engraver, Lucas Vorsterman.
This fine print, on six sheets and measuring 85.9 x 119 cms, is dated 1623 (D. Bodart, Rubens e L'Incisione, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 1977, no. 137). The reproductive print is typically in reverse of the prototype, and the painting is indeed evidently inspired by it. Motifs are taken from the print, re-arranged and modified, while other are introduced afresh. Thus the bridge (now over a narrower river, taken by some as the Thermodon) has been retained, but the main scene of combat between a Greek horseman and foot soldier and a resisting Amazon has been formally simplified and moved to the left foreground, and replaced by the troupe of Greek cavalry which was originally galloping onto it. The bolting horse dragging its rider on the left of the bridge now appears in the middle-ground to the right. The two dead Amazons lying on the river bank in the foreground have been retained in their original positions.
Also after Rubens is the figure of a recumbent Greek soldier propped up on his elbow in the left foreground. This figure was not devised as a Greek soldier for the Battle of the Amazons, but as a huntsman introduced in the Crocodile and Hippopotamus Hunt, which the artist had executed a few years earlier for Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and which after many vicissitudes is still in Bavaria in the Alte Pinakothek. The composition would have been known in Antwerp, as a copy, probably from Rubens's studio, remained in the city: it appears on the wall of a later, 17th century depiction of an Antwerp collector's cabinet (A. Balis. CRLB, XVIII (II), Hunting Scenes, 1986, under no. 5 and fig. 45).
Rubens heightened the drama of the encounter by silhouetting the melée on a bridge against the sky; here it is set against wooded mountains. The hilltop town on the left was reminiscent for Burchard of Tivoli. As he recognised, the landscape seems to be by a different hand from that responsible for the figures.
Neither the handling of the landscape nor the figures is particularly close to Rubens or to the manner practised in his studio in the second and third decades of the century. Indeed the dog, introduced in the right hand corner, seems to be the work of an artist at some distance from him. Dr. Joost Vander Auwera has kindly pointed to similarities with the grisaille modelli for a tapestry series painted by Erasmus Quellinus in the 1640s (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, in J.P. de Bruyn, Erasmus II Quellinus, Freren, 1988, nos. 118-125a). These seem to be on the whole more sophisticated works.
The artist has yet to be identified, and may never be, but he seems certainly to have been active in Antwerp, and his manner is not unlike that of Caspar van den Hoecke, father of the more famous Jan, whose identified oeuvre is small, although he was active for much of the first half of the seventeenth century, not dying until 1648. The handling of the landscape is reminiscent of Jan Tilens (1584-1630) born and presumed chiefly active in Antwerp, although he may have visited Italy as is suggested by a Capriccio View of the Ruins of Palatine, Rome (Die Flämische Landschaft, exhibition catalogue, Essen & Vienna, 2003-4, no. 120).
The bright colour range used for the figures and their hard edged delineation make it likely that this painting was executed not long after the publication of Vorsterman's print in 1623 and before 1630, if Tilens was responsible for the landscape. Rubens's Battle of the Amazons may have been well known in Antwerp as it was owned by Cornelis van der Gest and is prominently displayed in Willem van Haecht's depiction of his collection (Antwerp, Rubenshuis); but the painter of the present, striking picture and his intended patron seem to have admired it through the vehicle of Vorsterman's print.