Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Jonathan Richardson Sr. (L.2183);
Thomas Hudson (L.2432);
Sir Joshua Reynolds (L.2364);
Sir Herbert Cook, Richmond (large catalogue, vol. II, no. 345, small catalogue, p. 90);
with Mrs. Franz Drey, London;
with Walter Hugelshofer, Zürich

Helsinki, Ateneum (Finnish Academy of Fine Arts), and Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, P.P. Rubens esquisses, dessins, gravures, 1952-53, cat. 32, reproduced pl. XXV (and on cover of Helsinki edition);
Antwerp, Rubenshuis, Tekeningen van P.P. Rubens, 1956, cat. 127

F. Baudouin, 'Nota's bij de tentoonstelling "Schetsen en tekeningen van P.P. Rubens,"' in Bulletin der Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels 1953, pp. 51-3, reproduced pl. 3;
J.S. Held, 'A propos de l'exposition Rubens à Bruxelles, in 'Les Art Plastiques, Brussels, March-April 1953, pp. 107-16

Laid down on what appears to be the remains of the Richardson mount (traces of gold border visible, top and left). Laid down again on modern backing. Paper rather browned and lightly foxed throughout. Chalk rather rubbed and some lines and shading apparently reinforced. Light vertical crease, left of centre, and light vertical wrinkle, upper right. Minor surface losses towards top, a few lightish areas around the hand. Unframed.
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This important study, unknown until it was exhibited in 1952-53, relates to the focal figure in one of Rubens' most famous and imposing late works, The Garden of Love, of which the primary version, executed circa 1632/3, is in the Prado (fig. 1).

Nine other preparatory drawings for The Garden of Love are known. These are studies for almost all of the main figures in the composition, executed in the same combination of media as the present work: black and red chalk with touches of white, on buff paper.¹ The only figure for which multiple studies have survived is the girl in the centre of the composition – kneeling, with her hand on the knee of a young cavalier – to which the present drawing relates. Two other drawings for this crucial figure are known, one in the Louvre, the other in the Amsterdams Historisch Museum.² Unlike the present study, both those drawings show the entire figure. Here, on the other hand, the focus is on her head and shoulders, and the technique is less elaborated than in the other two sheets. Indeed, it seems that the drawing has been to some extent worked up by another hand, with the addition of further shading and hatching and reinforcement of certain lines, though whether this was done to bring a sketchy drawing to a higher level of finish, or to rectify losses due to abrasion, remains unclear. In any case, as Dr. Anne-Marie Logan has kindly confirmed, the underlying study is entirely by Rubens.

Precisely why Rubens made three different studies of this figure remains unclear, and in the 1956 Antwerp exhibition catalogue L. Burchard and R.-A. d'Hulst pointed out the the figure also corresponds with one in Rubens' 1635 painting in Vienna, The Meeting between Ferdinand of Hungary and the Cardinal-Infanta at Nordlingen, implying that perhaps the present study was made for that painting instead. Yet the physiognomy of the figure remains closer to that seen in The Garden of Love.  

The identities of the figures depicted in Rubens' Garden of Love have been much discussed. Perhaps due to the playful, apparently personal nature of the subject, it has often been suggested that the scene shows members of the artist's own family, and the features of the young woman in the present drawing do indeed resemble those of his second wife, Hélène Fourment, the delightful daughter of a well-to-do Antwerp tapestry and silk merchant, whom Rubens had married in 1630 (when she was sixteen and he was fifty-four). The identification of the girl in this drawing and the Madrid painting must, however, remain uncertain, as many of the female types in Rubens' paintings and drawings of this period understandably reflect the features of his beloved bride.

1.  See A.-M. Logan, Peter Paul Rubens. The Drawings, exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005, cat. no. 90-92
2.  Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 20194; Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Fodor Collection, inv. A 10300. Reproduced G. Glück & F.M. Haberditzl, Die Handzeichnungen von Peter Paul Rubens, Berlin 1928, nos./pls. 201, 202