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Lot Essay
This fascinating drawing shows studies for no fewer than four different compositions, which can be dated between 1632 and 1638.
Of the five separate groups of figures assembled on the recto, four are preparatory for the central group of The Abduction of Hippodameia, one of more than sixty paintings with mythological subjects commissioned from Rubens by King Philip IV of Spain for his hunting lodge of Torre de la Parada, on the outskirts of Madrid. The palace no longer exists, but the The Abduction of Hippodameia, along with other canvasses of the same cycle is today in the Museo del Prado (182 x 220 cm.; Alpers, op. cit., no. 37). There is also a spontaneous and attractive sketch for the composition in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels (26 x 40 cm.; Held, op. cit., no. 196).
The source of the subject is Ovid: when Pirithous, King of the Lapiths, married Hippodameia, the daughter of Adrastus, he invited to the wedding all the gods as well as his neighbours, the centaurs. Only Mars was not invited. In revenge, Mars decided to create a quarrel between the members of the party. The centaur Eurytion, intoxicated by wine as well as by desire, tried to abduct Hippodameia. A general battle ensued in which the Lapiths prevailed over the centaurs with the aid of Theseus and Hercules (represented holding a club in the present drawing).
None of the studies in the Burchard sheet corresponds exactly to the figures in the final painting or in the Brussels sketch, although the central one is the closest.
The spirited and vividly sketched Hercules and Achelous, lower right, cannot be related to any painting for the Torre de la Parada, but as other scenes on the life of Hercules were part of the decoration it seems likely that Rubens had at one point planned to include a composition of that subject.
The studies on the verso represent two scenes from the Passion of Christ. On the right is Christ shown to the People. On His right, a helmeted soldier seizes His mantle while Pilate stands to His left. In the bottom right corner of the drawing and much smaller in scale, Pilate is shown enthroned. Slightly to the left, the heads and shoulders of several figures are seen from behind. This sketch can be related, although in reverse and with differences, to an oil sketch, generally dated around 1632-5, in the Cramer Collection, The Hague (Held, op. cit., no. 343) for which no large painting is known to have existed or even to have been commissioned.
On the left Rubens has drawn two studies for The Way to Calvary. At the top, Christ is struggling along on the ground with the Cross supported above Him by two men placed behind it. He is pulled forward by a soldier who grasps His hair. The same scene is repeated, elaborated and enlarged beneath to include twelve figures, with Veronica kneeling to the right, behind Christ (the little bust-length sketch of a woman with arms raised, at the lower centre of the sheet, seems to be a study for the same figure). To her right is a group of women, including the Virgin wringing her hands in anguish. These sketches are early studies for one of Rubens's last great commissions, the main altar of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the Benedictine Abbey at Affligem (now in Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts; Judson, op. cit., no. 19). The very large painting (569 x 355 mm.) was executed between 1634 and 1637 and was prepared by means of at least three oil sketches. Of these, the Burchard drawing is closest to that in Brussels, widely considered to be the earliest (Held, op. cit., no. 346). The drawing and the Brussels sketch are in the same sense (the composition is reversed in the two other sketches and in the altarpiece) and in both Christ's hair is pulled from behind, an idea dropped in the subsequent paintings.
As Rubens did not receive the commission for the decoration of the Torre de la Parada before 1637, and he started to work on the Affligem altarpiece in 1634, it is likely that he first drew The Way to Calvary and Christ shown to the People. A possible reason for his deciding to use the other side of the sheet some time later, when he was working on his composition of The Abduction of Hippodameia, was his desire to reuse the figure holding Christ's hair on the left of his sketch of The Way to Calvary. It reappears almost unchanged on the recto as the figure of Hercules trying to free Hippodameia from the centaur Eurytion. This kind of transition from one idea to another, from one composition to another can be observed at least once more in the drawing. The group at the upper left on the recto, while certainly a study for Hippodameia and Eurytion, is quite close, although in reverse, to the group at the right in Rubens's Rape of the Sabines in the National Gallery, London, dated circa 1635-7.
Of the five separate groups of figures assembled on the recto, four are preparatory for the central group of The Abduction of Hippodameia, one of more than sixty paintings with mythological subjects commissioned from Rubens by King Philip IV of Spain for his hunting lodge of Torre de la Parada, on the outskirts of Madrid. The palace no longer exists, but the The Abduction of Hippodameia, along with other canvasses of the same cycle is today in the Museo del Prado (182 x 220 cm.; Alpers, op. cit., no. 37). There is also a spontaneous and attractive sketch for the composition in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels (26 x 40 cm.; Held, op. cit., no. 196).
The source of the subject is Ovid: when Pirithous, King of the Lapiths, married Hippodameia, the daughter of Adrastus, he invited to the wedding all the gods as well as his neighbours, the centaurs. Only Mars was not invited. In revenge, Mars decided to create a quarrel between the members of the party. The centaur Eurytion, intoxicated by wine as well as by desire, tried to abduct Hippodameia. A general battle ensued in which the Lapiths prevailed over the centaurs with the aid of Theseus and Hercules (represented holding a club in the present drawing).
None of the studies in the Burchard sheet corresponds exactly to the figures in the final painting or in the Brussels sketch, although the central one is the closest.
The spirited and vividly sketched Hercules and Achelous, lower right, cannot be related to any painting for the Torre de la Parada, but as other scenes on the life of Hercules were part of the decoration it seems likely that Rubens had at one point planned to include a composition of that subject.
The studies on the verso represent two scenes from the Passion of Christ. On the right is Christ shown to the People. On His right, a helmeted soldier seizes His mantle while Pilate stands to His left. In the bottom right corner of the drawing and much smaller in scale, Pilate is shown enthroned. Slightly to the left, the heads and shoulders of several figures are seen from behind. This sketch can be related, although in reverse and with differences, to an oil sketch, generally dated around 1632-5, in the Cramer Collection, The Hague (Held, op. cit., no. 343) for which no large painting is known to have existed or even to have been commissioned.
On the left Rubens has drawn two studies for The Way to Calvary. At the top, Christ is struggling along on the ground with the Cross supported above Him by two men placed behind it. He is pulled forward by a soldier who grasps His hair. The same scene is repeated, elaborated and enlarged beneath to include twelve figures, with Veronica kneeling to the right, behind Christ (the little bust-length sketch of a woman with arms raised, at the lower centre of the sheet, seems to be a study for the same figure). To her right is a group of women, including the Virgin wringing her hands in anguish. These sketches are early studies for one of Rubens's last great commissions, the main altar of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the Benedictine Abbey at Affligem (now in Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts; Judson, op. cit., no. 19). The very large painting (569 x 355 mm.) was executed between 1634 and 1637 and was prepared by means of at least three oil sketches. Of these, the Burchard drawing is closest to that in Brussels, widely considered to be the earliest (Held, op. cit., no. 346). The drawing and the Brussels sketch are in the same sense (the composition is reversed in the two other sketches and in the altarpiece) and in both Christ's hair is pulled from behind, an idea dropped in the subsequent paintings.
As Rubens did not receive the commission for the decoration of the Torre de la Parada before 1637, and he started to work on the Affligem altarpiece in 1634, it is likely that he first drew The Way to Calvary and Christ shown to the People. A possible reason for his deciding to use the other side of the sheet some time later, when he was working on his composition of The Abduction of Hippodameia, was his desire to reuse the figure holding Christ's hair on the left of his sketch of The Way to Calvary. It reappears almost unchanged on the recto as the figure of Hercules trying to free Hippodameia from the centaur Eurytion. This kind of transition from one idea to another, from one composition to another can be observed at least once more in the drawing. The group at the upper left on the recto, while certainly a study for Hippodameia and Eurytion, is quite close, although in reverse, to the group at the right in Rubens's Rape of the Sabines in the National Gallery, London, dated circa 1635-7.