Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Fürst Ernst Wenzel Anton Kaunitz (1711-1794), Vienna;
By inheritance to Fürst Alois Wenzel Kaunitz (1774-1848), Vienna;
His sale, Vienna, Artaria & Co., 13ff. March 1820, lot 153, for 38 florins to Adamovics:
Hofrat Valentin Andreas von Adamovics, Vienna;
Pulski collection, Budapest, where photographed by Ad. Braun & Co., no. 22716;
Dr. James Simon, Berlin;
With Ch. Albert de Burlet Kunsthandlung, Viktoriastrasse 14, Berlin; From whom acquired by August Neuerburg (died 1944), Elbchaussee 77, Hamburg-Blankenese, in December 1929, for 35,200 Reichsmarks;
Thence by descent.

Brussels, Musée de Cinquantenaire, Exposition d'art ancien. L'Art belge au XVII^e siècle, 1910, no. 412^bis (as St Maurice).

F.M. Haberditzl, "Studien über Rubens", in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, vol. XXX, no. 5, 1912, p. 277;
R. Oldenbourg, "Rubens in Italien", in Jahrbuch der Preussichen Kunstsammlungen, 37, Berlin 1916;
R. Oldenbourg, P.P Rubens, Des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst, Berlin 1921, p. 12, reproduced;
K. Bauch, "Beiträge zur Rubensforschung", in Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. XLV, 1924, p. 187;
L. Burchard, "Skizzen des jungen Rubens", in Sitzungsberichte der Kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft, Berlin 1926/7, p. 3;
L. van Puyvelde, Les Esquisses de Rubens, Basel 1940, no. 4, p. 65, reproduced plate 4 (as Saint Maurice);
H.G. Evers, Rubens und sein Werk, Neue Forschungen, Brussels 1943, pp. 116, 158-59;
M. Jaffé, "Peter Paul Rubens and the Oration Fathers", in Proporzioni, 1959, p. 28, and footnote 100;
W.L. Kitlitschka, Rubens und die Bildhauerei, Vienna 1963, no. 3, p. 258;
J. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, vol. I, Princeton 1980, p. 593, no. 431, reproduced vol. II, plate 419;
M. Jaffé, Rubens. Catalogo Completo, Milan 1990, p. 198, no. 265;
D. Jaffe, "Rubens back and front.  The case of the National Gallery Samson and Delilah", in Apollo, August 2000, p. 25.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a small oak panel with quite an old cradle. Clearly as a studio modello, perhaps for a tapestry, this little painting was subject to a certain amount of handling, and the edges are fairly broadly rubbed or knocked : along the base there is a fairly narrow band of rather battered retouched wood, a wider band runs down the right edge with old filling and retouching, retouching at the top edge covers much of the upper dark background, and on the left side there are retouched fillings down the outer edge and an inner band also with some damage, and several old losses in the upper left corner. Occasional recent minor knocks at the edges are mainly to the fillings at the sides. The putto in the upper left corner is painted over old repaint, as well as having later retouched fillings, and although the red drapery on the left close to the soldier's body is original, further left it has been repainted. The centre of the figure however is quite strongly intact, especially the beautifully preserved head, the central armour and the legs in general apart from a retouched patch in the upper right leg above the knee. The foreground stage and loosely sketched drapery behind the legs is also well preserved. Over the light ground much of the figure seems to have been painted across a broadly laid in swathe of scarlet drapery, which is emerging through the thinner areas on the left. The right side of the figure is better preserved, with just a streak of retouching up the outer side of the arm. The characteristic vigour of the brushwork is beautifully preserved in the figure generally. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Julius Held dates this sketch circa 1614-16, noting that the soldier's right hand and the drapery from which it emerges do not seem to be original, and the angel, clearly an afterthought, may also not be autograph.  Jaffé dated it circa 1614, but Van Puyvelde believed it to be much earlier, and connected it with Rubens' work for the Chiesa Nuova in Rome, suggesting that it be a study for Saint Maurus during the second phase of work when the original subject was divided into three individual pictures.  Held rightly dismissed this theory, which would in any event be unlikely in light of the oak support.   Held thought that the figure depicted was more likely to be a Roman hero than a saint, and in the absence of any obvious connection with a known project, he suggested that Rubens may have made the sketch in connection with a tapestry design, noting that it would be more normal for a warrior to hold his weapon in his right hand and his shield in his left, but that the artist would have accounted for the usual reversal of the design in weaving.

Earlier lateral enlargements to a width of 28 cm., including parts of a landscape, have been removed.  A copy of this work, on canvas and showing these enlargements, was sold in Vienna, Kende, 25 November 1920.

A note on the provenance
James Simon (1851-1932) was a wealthy Berlin textile manufacturer and an important Berlin philanthropist and patron of the arts.  A monument was recently erected in his honour near his house at Tiergartenstrasse 15a, and a building named after him is to form the new entrance to the combined museums on the Museumsinsel in Berlin.  On the birthday anniversary of Frederick the Great, 24th January 1898, he founded with other influential men the German Oriental Society, which rapidly became very influential, enjoying the protection of the Kaiser. Simon directed it and financed it in close co-operation and friendship with Wilhelm von Bode, the general director of the Kaiser's Museums. His most successful excavation project was in Egypt in 1911 in Tel el-Amarna, where among many important finds was the discovery of the bust of Akhneton's beautiful wife, Queen Nefertiti.

Simon was a distinguished collector in his own right, and a known admirer of Rubens.  The sale of the present picture in 1929 was probably occasioned by the bankruptcy in the same year of the family textile firm. 

August Neuerburg amassed a considerable collection of Old Masters, largely bought in the 1920s, but with a few subsequent acquisitions.  He is best known as a collector of Rubens, and the celebrated early Samson and Delilah, now in the National Gallery was in his collection from 1930 until sold by his descendants in 1980.