* Sir Peter Paul Rubens Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp

Possibly Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the Palais de Duc de Brabant, Brussels, by 1657;
Charles - Henri, Comte de Hoym, Ambassador in Paris to King Frederick Augustus of Saxony and Poland, 1694-1733, recorded in an inventory of his collection.

J. Pinchon, Vie de Charles - Henry, Comte de Heym, Paris 1880, p. 64 (recorded from an inventory of his collection from 1727 as "312. Quatres petits tableaux de Rubens, peints sur bois, de 2 pieds de haut sur 1 pied 4 pouces 1/2 de large chacun, representant les quatre vertus.  La Prudence (a), La Justice (b), La Force (c), La Liberalité (d), figures de petite nature');
N. de Poorter, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, II, The Eucharist Series, London and New York 1978, p. 142, under footnote 30.

The present picture formed part of a group of four panels representing the four Virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Abundance (for a discussion and illustration of Justice and Abundance see J. S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, 1980, vol. I, nos. 273-4; vol. II, pls. 267-8).  Prudence and Fortitude were unknown to Held prior to his 1980 monograph, but their discovery made shortly after the publication offered Held the opportunity to examine firsthand the group as a whole, at which point in written communication to the owner, he suggested an execution date of circa 1630.  

The composition of the Allegory of Fortitude was used for a tapestry woven in Brussels in the workshop of Frans and Jan-Frans Van den Hecke (see Fig. 1).  Rubens' Allegory of Justice from the same series also served as a model for a tapestry woven by Van den Hecke (see N. de Poorter, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, II, The Eucharist Series, London and New York, pp. 142 and 244; II, figs. 223 and 226).  Although these tapestries were designed with the intention to complement those of Rubens' Triumph of the Eucharist (see C. Scribner, Triumph of the Eucharist, Tapestries designed by Rubens, 1982) Held believed they were "not originally intended to be part of the larger cycle".  Nora De Poorter states that the "paper cartoons after these pieces were in the possession of ...Frans van den Hecke in the mid-seventeenth century".  The tapestry depicting the Allegory of Fortitude was sold with the collection of the Duke of Berwick and Alba in Paris, 7-20 April, lot 58, its present day location is not known.

All four panels are first recorded in the 1727 inventory of Charles-Henri, Comte de Hoym, Ambassador in Paris of King Frederick Augustus (the Strong) of Saxony and Poland (1694-1733) (see Provenance and Literature below). Although listed in the inventory as a group, they were not in fact hung together but the inventory suggests that two were hung in "le cabinet aux tableaux" and two were hung in "le petit cabinet sur terrasse".  Ten years later, a second inventory was drawn up of the collection after the death of the Comte de Hoym in which the four sketches were no longer listed as a group.  Prudence and Fortitude were listed as numbers 55 and 56 and valued at 120 livres, and Justice and Abundance  (previously described as Liberalité) were listed as numbers 78 and 79.  In 1739, Justice and Abundance were acquired by James Harris and from him passed into the collections of the Earls of Malmesbury, Greywell Hill, Basingstoke, Hampshire, where they stayed until sold in 1972, only to be later published in the collections of E.V. Thaw, New York and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo respectively.  Prudence and the present panel remained untraced until the early 1990s when they were rediscovered. Prudence was sold by Christie's, London, 9 July 1993, lot 31.

All four panels are of identical size, and each one is made up of two vertical panels, joined vertically in the middle.  The reverse of all four panels bears the brand of the coat-of-arms of the City of Antwerp and a punch mark composed of the letters N and V, probably that of Nicholas Vriendt, the brother of Michael Vriendt, tafereel-maker (maker of wood panels), who died on 11 August, 1637 (see E. Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen uit de Zeventiede Eeuw, IV: 1636-1642, 1989, p. 217). 

Rubens depicts a young and determined woman grasping two columns, the structure of a building or temple, crumbling around her, exhibiting her strength and fortitude.  She is dressed in a dark blue gown, with one breast exposed.  She is draped in a green robe highlighted with pink and over the top she wears a lion's skin.  The lion's head is positioned on her head in the manner of a helmet.  The scene is framed at the top by a red curtain, held up by swags of fruit and a wreath of oak leaves hangs from the centre.

In this Allegory of Fortitude, Rubens combines two themes, both connected to figures renowned for their courage and physical strength: Hercules, the hero of classical mythology, and Samson, his biblical counterpart.  Hercules was always depicted draped in a lion skin, representing his slaying of the Nemean lion, the first of his twelve labors (see Hyginus, Fabularum Liber, XXX).  Rubens drapes his female figure in a lion skin with the head of the lion covering her mane of hair.  This representation of an individual's head being protected by the head of a lion to give them additional (feline) strength, bears its roots iconographically in the depiction of Hercules on Macedonian coins.  Alexander the Great, who had also engaged in mortal combat with a lion, chose to have himself portrait on coins with a Hercules' lion's head.  One such coin, rendered by Rubens in a delicately penned drawing, is in the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (see Fig. 2). 

The motif of the lion's skin connects Rubens' allegorical representation of Fortitude to other mythical figures of extraordinary strength who were compelled to prove their strength by entering into combat with a lion.  Samson, like Hercules, demonstrated his superhuman strength by slaying a lion with his bare hands and defeating the beast by tearing his jaws apart.  But it is most likely the more famous act of Samson's defeat of the Philistines that Rubens alludes to in this representation of Fortitude.  The Philistines captured Samson, blinded him and threw him into a prison at Gaza.  Samson implored God to embew him once more his former power and strength.  When his prayer was granted, Samson was taken to a house full of Philistines where he "took hold of the middle of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood" occupied by his enemies "one with his right hand and the other with is left" and he brought the edifice to the ground.  The collapsing structure buried him with all its occupants (Judges 16: 29-30).  Rubens' depiction of the fractured columns in this allegory, being clutched by the female figure with both arms, as Samson had done, was surely meant to remind viewers of the story of Samson and his valiant strength, in the same way in which the lion's skin evoked the myth of Hercules.