Hercules as Heroic Virtue Overcoming Discord
Peter Paul Rubens
(Flemish, 1577–1640)
about 1632–33
Medium/TechniqueOil on panel
Dimensions63.8 x 48.6 cm (25 1/8 x 19 1/8 in.)
Credit LineErnest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund
Accession number47.1543
On View
On viewClassificationsPaintings
Collections
This oil sketch is one of many modelli, or preliminary models, for the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall in London. Commissioned by Charles I, a king known for his patronage of the arts, this is the only painted ceiling decoration in England executed in the grand dramatic style of the seventeenth century. This sketch is one of four corner ovals depicting Virtue's triumph over Vice in allegorical form and may refer to Charles I's political ambitions.
Provenance1904, Fontaine-Flament, Lille, France; June 10, 1904, Fontaine-Flament sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, lot 47, to Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris; June 3-5, 1907, Sedelmeyer sale, Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris, lot 42, to Giskoff [see note 1]. 1919, Marczell von Nemes, Budapest and Munich; March 19, 1919, Nemes sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, lot 19, to François Monod (b. 1877), Paris. Dr. Fritz Rothman (b. 1893), London; by 1946, sold by Rothman to Agnew and Sons, London [see note 2]; 1947, sold by Agnew to the MFA for £2000. (Accession Date: December 11, 1947)NOTES:
[1] The buyer's name is annotated in a copy of the auction catalogue.
[2] According to correspondence from Agnew's to the MFA (August 31, 2004), Dr. Rothman sold the painting to the gallery. It was included in Agnew's Summer Exhibition (June, 1946), no. 18.
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
