Psyche welcomed to Olympus

Details

Attributed to Jacob Jordaens (Antwerp 1593-1678)
Psyche welcomed to Olympus
with inscription 'Jordaens'
black and white chalk
10 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. (27 x 34 cm.)

Provenance

P.H. Lankrink (L. 2090).
J. Richardson Jun. (L. 2170), with his inscription 'Rubens. Mercury bringing Psyche up to Heaven, before the Councill of the Gods; accompanied by Hymenaus with his nuptial Torch, received by Cupid, her future Husband, to whom the Graces present a Garland of Flowers to crown his Bride, Beautifull Emblem of the divine Union of Love & the Soull. See Apuleius L. 4.5, 6.' (on the verso of the mount).
J.P. Heseltine (according to the 1954 sale).
Miss N. McIntosh; Sotheby's, London, 10 November 1954, lot 2, as Rubens (£4 to Squire).

Literature

J.S. Held, 'Jordaens at Ottawa', Burlington Magazine, CXI, May 1969, p. 267.
J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens: A critical catalogue, Princeton, 1980, I, p. 192, under no. 129.

Exhibited

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Seventeenth-Century Flemish Drawings and Oil Sketches, 1958, no. 20.
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Jacob Jordaens 1593-1678, 1968-9, no. 185, as Jordaens.

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Lot Essay

A copy after an oil sketch by Rubens in the Liechtenstein collection, Vaduz (inv. 117; Held, op. cit., 1980, I, no. 129; II, fig. 133). The Vaduz oil sketch, datable to 1620-30, cannot be linked to any known completed work, although Held (op. cit., 1980) suggests that it may be one of Rubens's early ideas for the decoration of the Banqueting House. Records show that Jordaens depicted the story of Psyche twice: once on a ceiling which he executed at Greenwich for Queen Henrietta Maria, circa 1640, and again as a ceiling decoration for his own house in Antwerp, probably painted circa 1641.

An attribution to Willem Panneels has also been suggested. For other drawings by this artist, see J. Garff and E. de la Fuente Pedersen, Rubens Cantoor: The Drawings of Willem Panneels, Copenhagen, 1988.
We are very grateful to Jeremy Wood for his assistance in preparing this catalogue note.

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