Master of Shadows (38 page)

something new to his neighbors: The painter Frans Floris had built a classically inspired home for himself in the sixteenth century, but it was of less sophisticated design.

“suited to housing families”: Quoted in Lescourret,
Double Life
, 243.

“in imagination alone”: McGrath, “Painted Decoration of Rubens’s House,” 245. On the trompe l’oeil frieze on the Rubens house, see this essay and Muller’s “Perseus and Andromeda on Rubens’s House.”

Willem van Haecht: The artist depicted the scene several years after the occurrence of the event it represented. See Baudouin,
Pietro Pauolo Rubens
, 286.

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc: On Peiresc, and on antiquarianism generally, see Miller,
Peiresc’s Europe
.

large room on the first floor: The most convincing account of the studio’s design and operation is Muller, “Rubens’s Collection in History.”

could wait a year or more: In May 1611, Rubens wrote a letter to an important client, Jacob de Bie, apologizing for not being able to find a place for someone he had recommended, with the excuse that he had already rejected over a hundred applications, including those from family members.

“Abandon and audacity alone”: Quoted in Alpers,
Making of Rubens
, 153.

“When we kept silent”: Otto Sperling, quoted in Belkin,
Rubens
, 5.

crabbelingen:
On Rubens’s technique, see especially Logan,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 3–18.

Designs for the large tapestries: Though they are not nearly so revered today, tapestries were both valued aesthetically and generally more expensive than paintings, owing to their size and the immense costs of their manufacture.

“He sends less competent judges”: Quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 214. One dealer compared his intransigence in bargaining to the biblical Medes, whose laws were inalterable.

100 guilders per day: The annual income requirements for a baron and for a prince were 6,000 and 14,000 guilders, respectively. On Rubens and his income, see Filipczak,
Picturing Art in Antwerp
, 73–88.

“dolcissima professione”:
Quoted in
LPPR
, I.

He could regularly be seen: The English diplomat Thomas Roe, who met the artist in Antwerp, wrote that Rubens had “grown so rich by his profession
that he appeared everywhere, not like a painter but a great cavalier with a very stately train of servants, horses, coaches, liveries, and so forth.” Quoted in White,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 73. 78 He didn’t drink to excess: According to his biographer Roger de Piles, “He maintained a great aversion against too much wine and good living, as well as gambling.” See “Life of Rubens” (1681), in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles,
Lives of Rubens
, 80.

“my secretary”: In Italian, “mio secretario”: Brueghel to Ercole Bianchi, Dec. 9, 1616, in
CDR
, 2:92. Rubens frequently collaborated with his friends, usually genre specialists. On the valuation of collaborative works, see Honig,
Painting & the Market
.

“Medio Deus omnia campo”:
On this phrase, see Muller, “Rubens’s Collection in History,” 15.

His passions were released in his work: Svetlana Alpers has argued that the artist sublimated his more carnal urges into the figure of Silenus, a fat and happy drunk from Greek mythology. Rubens painted this obscure character with an oddly persistent regularity. See Alpers,
Making of Rubens
, 101–57.

“deprived the world”: Rubens to Faber, Jan. 14, 1611, in
LPPR
, 53–54.

a group portrait: Now in the collection of the Pitti Palace, and commonly known as
The Four Philosophers
. Van den Wouvere is the fourth figure in the painting.

“a voluntarie sufferance”: Lipsius,
Tvvo Bookes of Constancie
, 9.

His erudition was legendary: On Lipsius, see especially Grafton,
Bring Out Your Dead
, chap. 12; and Miller,
Peiresc’s Europe
. Rubens’s last child, a daughter born in February 1641, eight months after the painter’s death, was named Constantia.

“The Peripatetic sage”: Montaigne,
Complete Essays of Montaigne
, 31. Montaigne may have been a model for Rubens, in that he was a moderate Catholic and cultural figure conscripted into political service. Unlike Rubens, however, he was born into the aristocracy.

Kunstkammers:
On Antwerp’s private galleries, in particular that of Rubens, see especially Muller, “Rubens’s Collection in History.” The Byzantine vase, now known as the “Rubens Vase,” is in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

“You surpass all the painters”: Peiresc to Rubens, in Rooses,
Rubens
, 344.

“The reason for comparing”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 3, 1623, in
LPPR
, 91.

a practical brand of humanism: On antiquarianism and politics generally, see Miller,
Peiresc’s Europe
. On the education of authority figures, see 64–65.

“His conceit and vanity”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, March 16, 1628, in
LPPR
, 245. On the specific contents of Rubens’s collection, see Muller, “Rubens’s Collection in History.”

“In order to achieve”: Quoted in Logan,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 33n.

special gallery for his statues: See Muller, “Rubens’s Collection in History;” and “Rubens’s Museum of Antique Sculpture.”

Carr was swept up in a scandal: On Carleton and Carr, see especially Brotton,
Sale of the Late King’s Goods
, 59–65. See also Donovan,
Rubens and England
.

“I am by mischance made a master”: Carleton to John Chamberlain, Feb. 20, 1617, in Sainsbury, 300.

“I finde some of my owne heads wanting”: Carleton to Chamberlain, March 25, 1617, in ibid., 301.

“I find that at present”: Rubens to Carleton, April 28, 1618, in
LPPR
, 60–61.

easier for him to move: “To persons who are always in motion, as my situation obliges me to be, a thing of so much weight is not convenient,” Carleton wrote. Carleton to Rubens, April 27, 1618, in Sainsbury, 32.

“You, sir, may calculate”: Ibid.

“They are so well retouched”: Rubens to Carleton, May 12, 1618, in
LPPR
, 61–62.

“I cannot subscribe to your denial”: Carleton to Rubens, May 22, 1618, in Sainsbury, 37.

unsurpassed garden of court artists: Also on the archdukes’ payroll were Otto van Veen, Jan Brueghel, Joos de Momper, Frans Francken, and Sebastian Vrancx.

grand Habsburg tradition: On the archdukes’ court and reign, see especially Israel, “The Court of Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621,” in
Conflicts of Empires
, 1–22; and David Freedberg, “Painting and the Counter Reformation in the Age of Rubens,” in Sutton,
Age of Rubens
, 131–45.

“She is a princess endowed”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, July 20, 1628, in
LPPR
, 276–77.

That piety was something: See Israel, “Court of Albert and Isabella,” 1–22; and Freedberg, “Painting and the Counter Reformation,” 131–45.

more than sixty altarpieces: See Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 151; and Freedberg, “Painting and the Counter Reformation,” 133–34.

a new phase of conflict: On hostilities during the truce, see Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 66–95; and Geyl,
Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century
, 18–83.

Calderón’s very mission: See Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 16–17.

most beautiful present: See Rooses,
Rubens
, 125.

downfalls would come in quick and ugly succession: See Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 60–65.

“The thing they enjoy”: Translation adapted from Elizabeth McGrath,
Subjects from History
, pt. 13 of the
Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchardt
(London: Harvey Miller, 1997), 1:129.

Nowhere was Rubens’s genius better appreciated: The Englishman Henry Peacham, author of a 1634 primer on aristocratic behavior,
The Compleat Gentleman
, lauded Rubens as “the best story teller of his generation.” (110)

Howard toured Italy: On the Howards as connoisseurs, see Brotton,
Sale of the Late King’s Goods
, 41, 54.

“break off negotiations at once”: Rubens to Carleton, May 28, 1619, in
LPPR
, 71.

Rubens got the privileges: The Dutch States General passed a resolution granting Rubens his rights on June 8, 1619, provided that he supply one plate for each work to be copyrighted. The resolution noted the recommendation of “lord Carleton, ambassador of the king of Great Britain.” See Rooses,
Rubens
, 327.

“Thoes bewtiful lions”: Danvers to Carleton, Aug. 7, 1619, in Sainsbury, 49.

“Ruined”: Rubens to William Trumbull, Jan. 26, 1621, in ibid., 50. 98 “touched and retouched”: Ibid.

“scarce doth look like a thing”: Toby Matthew to Carleton, Nov. 25, 1620, in ibid., 53.

no hiding Danvers’s dissatisfaction: Danvers’s secretary carped that Rubens had not “shewed his greatest skill in it.” Thomas Locke to Carleton, March 18, 1621, in ibid., 57.

“In every painters
[sic]
opinion”: Danvers to Carleton, May 27, 1621, in ibid., 57–58.

“less terrible”: Rubens to Trumbull, Sept. 13, 1621, in
LPPR
, 77.

“Surely it would be better”: Rubens to Valavez, Feb. 20, 1626, in
LPPR
, 130.

a small female dog: On gifts for Marie, see Rooses,
Rubens
, 349. The necklace and dog may have been delivered on a later trip.

Luxembourg Palace: On the building and its architect, see Coope,
Salomon de Brosse
.

Rubens liked what he saw: De Brosse’s assimilation of Italian and northern European architectural vocabularies was something Rubens could intuitively appreciate; he approvingly referred to the building in his monograph on the palaces of Genoa.

“Italian painters could not do”: Quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 352.

The real challenge: On the difficulty of the Medici commission, see Belkin,
Rubens
, 181–90; and Saward,
Golden Age of Marie de’ Medici
.

“There is no more lovable soul”: Quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 350.

“incorrigible mania”: Rubens to Valavez, Dec. 26, 1625, in
LPPR
, 122. 106 “a comedy much more agreeable”: Quoted in Miller,
Peiresc’s Europe
, 70.

Lucas Vorsterman: On the Vorsterman affair, see Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,” in
Rubens and His Circle
, 114–25.

“I can no longer deal with him”: Rubens to Pieter van Veen, April 30, 1622, in
LPPR
, 87. Earlier, Rubens had informed Van Veen that “it seemed a lesser evil to have the work done in my presence by a well-intentioned young man, than by great artists according to their fancy.” Rubens to Van Veen, Jan. 23, 1619, in ibid., 69.

Charles de Longueval: On Longueval, see Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,”
114–25. If the term “propaganda” did not yet exist, the concept surely did.

“We have made almost nothing”: Rubens to Van Veen, April 30, 1622, in
LPPR
, 87.

“endangered by the attacks”: Quoted in Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,” 116.

specifically enjoined from making direct overtures: “Experience has shown how damaging and prejudicial has been [the truce] now in effect, and that were we to continue with it, it would prove the total ruin of these realms.” Philip III to Archduke Albert, quoted in Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 73.

Bartholde van T’Serclaes: The widow of Florent van T’Serclaes, one of Maurice’s advisers. On the T’Serclaes affair, see especially ibid., 73–85.

two thousand cheeses: On the political and military landscape after the truce, see ibid, 96–161.

The whole fiasco: See ibid., 100–102; and Parker,
Army of Flanders
, 180–81.

“As far as contagion is concerned”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 3, 1623, in
LPPR
, 92.

“negotiating secretly for a truce”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 10, 1623, in ibid., 93.

“With the French it is a state maxim”: Rubens to Isabella, March 15, 1625, in ibid., 104.

“Taken in consideration of the merits”:
Ordonnance de l’infante Isabelle
, Sept. 30, 1623, in
CDR
, 3:248–49.

“many sovereigns have tried”: Inigo Brizuela (l’Eveque de Segovie) to Philip IV, Jan. 29, 1624, in ibid., 3:266. The patent of nobility was granted in Madrid on June 5. Ibid., 3:295.

“suspicious of his own shadow”: Rubens to Pierre Pecquius, Jan. 22, 1624, in
LPPR
, 96. Pecquius was chancellor of Brabant and a longtime Rubens associate.

“I laughed and replied”: Rubens to Pecquius, Sept. 30, 1623, in ibid., 94–95.

Clara Serena: On Rubens and her death, see
CDR
, 3:288. On speculation about her role in the court of the infanta and on Rubens’s portraits of her, see Logan,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 244. On the mourning portrait of Isabella, see White,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 194.

“a matter in which I fancy”: De Baugy, quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 394–95.

“contente to suspend their armes”: Trumbull, quoted in Sainsbury, 76.

The ground war in Flanders: “The chief reason why we decided to renew the war with the Dutch on the expiry of the truce, was that our army should engage them on land so that they should not have the forces to attempt ventures such as this by sea,” wrote Philip. Quoted in Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 131.

“There is no power”: Rubens to Valavez, Dec. 12, 1624, in
LPPR
, 98.

more of the status quo: On Breda, see Israel,
Dutch Republic
, 106–9.

“I am the busiest and most harassed”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 10, 1625, in
LPPR
, 101.

“while the subjects of the pictures”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, Oct. 29, 1626, in ibid., 149–51.

“without some explanation”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Jan. 20, 1628, in ibid., 231.

“He served as the interpreter”: Rubens to Peiresc, May 13, 1625, in ibid., 107–10.