Rubens and His Spanish Patrons

Rubens and His Spanish Patrons ALEXANDER VERGARA published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb22ru, uk http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa http://www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia q Alexander Vergara 1999 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1999 Printed in the United States of America t Typeface Janson Text 10.25/13.5 pt. System DeskTopPro/UX [bv] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vergara, Alexander, 1960± Rubens and his Spanish patrons / Alexander Vergara. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0±521±63245±5 (hb) 1. Rubens, Peter Paul, Sir, 1577±1640 ± Criticism and interpretation. 2. Rubens, Peter Paul, Sir, 1577±1640 ± Journeys ± Spain. 3. Art patronage ± Spain. 4. Philip IV, King of Spain, 1605±1665 ± Art patronage. I. Title. nd673.r9v36 1999 759.9493±dc21 98±25246 cip isbn 0 521 63245 5 hardback ix Contents List of Illustrations page xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 1 The First Visit to Spain, 1603±1604: Ambitious for a Little Flattery 6 2 A Growing Presence, 1604±1628 19 3 Rubens' Second Visit to Spain, 1628±1629: His Majesty Knows Him and His Good Qualities 57 4 The King's Chosen Painter, 1630±1640 113 5 A Continued Presence: The Collecting of Rubens in Spain from 1640 to 1700 144 Appendix 1 189 Appendix 2 192 Appendix 3 194 Notes 197 Selected Bibliography 251 Index 267 CHAPTER ONE 6 The First Visit to Spain, 1603±1604 Ambitious for a Little Flattery By his very birth in 1577 into a Flemish family, Rubens' life was linked to Spain. When Rubens settled in Antwerp in 1589 with his mother and siblings he moved to the largest and most prosperous city of the Spanish Netherlands. That territory had fallen under Hapsburg rule by right of descent from the dukes of Burgundy in 1506 and shortly after- ward was incorporated into the domains of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Throughout Rubens' life, the southern Netherlands remained the Spanish monarchy's stronghold in the north of Europe, and the territory was ruled by members of the Spanish royal family. Following the governorships of Alexander Farnese and the archduke Ernst of Austria, another nephew ± and brother law-of Philip II of Spain, the archduke Albert, arrived in Brussels as governor-general in 1596. Two years later, in 1598, Albert married his cousin the infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II. The Netherlands were the dowry Isabella brought to the marriage, and thus the archdukes, as Albert and Isabella would be called, ruled as joint sovereign princes, with the stipulation that the territory would revert to the Spanish Crown if they had no children, as occurred after the death of Albert in 1621. The infanta continued to rule as governor until her death in 1633, and from then until after Rubens died in 1640 the post was occupied by the cardinal-infante Ferdinand, brother of King Philip IV.1 As a youth in Antwerp, and in nearby Brussels, Rubens must have become familiar with some aspects of Spanish culture and patronage. He probably met members of the Spanish colony and the Spanish administration, for whom local artists sometimes worked ± including his teacher, Otto Van Veen, and also his friend the portrait painter Frans Pourbus the Younger.2 However, no speci®c projects executed by the young Rubens for Spanish patrons are documented before his ®rst visit to Spain in 1603±1604, and given the painter's young age and his still developing professional status, there probably were none. It was during his Spanish sojourn that Rubens had his ®rst direct interaction with Spanish patrons and, equally important for the painter's develop- ment, with the works of art existing in Spanish collections. Rubens' Activities in Spain The circumstances of Rubens' ®rst visit to Spain are known to us through the correspondence of the painter with other persons who were 7 involved in his mission to the Spanish court. After completing his The First Visit to apprenticeship in Antwerp and becoming a member of the local Guild Spain, 1603±1604 of Saint Luke in 1598, Rubens decided to continue his artistic education in Italy. He traveled there on May 9, 1600, and soon entered the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. Rubens' visit to Spain came about three years later, when he was selected to form part of an embassy from the ducal court of Mantua to the court of King Philip III in Valladolid.3 Rubens left Mantua on March 5, 1603, charged with delivering to the Mantuan representative in Valladolid a series of gifts for the king and other courtiers, including a group of paintings intended for the king's favorite, Francisco GoÂmez de Sandoval y Rojas, ®rst duke of Lerma (1552±1625). The gift included close to forty paintings, among them a St. Jerome by Quentin Massys, an unspeci®ed portrait of the duke of Mantua, seventeen copies after Raphael believed to be by Pietro Facchetti, and copies after Titian and others.4 This is the ®rst of several instances in this book where one sees that Rubens' art, and to some extent also himself, were used as commodities in a form of economic transaction typical of the period, namely the exchange of gifts among Europe's dignitaries. In this case, Rubens was chosen to assist in the delivery of the paintings, and to contribute to the gift by adding paintings of his own if the occasion demanded.5 After embarking from Li- vorno on April 2, the painter ®rst set foot on Spanish soil in the port of Alicante, where he had arrived by April 22. From there he traveled nearly four hundred miles across the Castilian plateau to Valladolid, where he arrived on May 13. Immediately after his arrival, Rubens set to work repairing the pic- tures in the shipment, which had been damaged on the arduous trip. The deterioration of the paintings was ®rst believed to be very severe but later turned out to be somewhat less so. Nonetheless, Rubens' restoration work must have been extensive, as a large number of paintings were repaired. Iberti, the Mantuan representative in Valladolid, informs us that all the paintings were restored with the exception of a St. John and a small Madonna, which were thought to be beyond repair ± as it turned out, at least the St. John was also mended.6 Rubens also added to the gift a painting by his own hand, a Democritus and Heraclitus, his ®rst documented painting in Spain. According to the correspondence, this was painted in Valladolid sometime between June 14 and July 6 and was intended to make up for two of the damaged paintings that Rubens had brought to Spain for the duke of Lerma.7 After delivering the gift to the king and his favorite, Rubens began to work on a commission he had received from the duke of Mantua to paint a series of portraits of ladies of the Spanish court.8 Little is known about the results of this commission. The artist was not pleased with the job, and 8 although the documents say that he worked on the portraits,9 he tried to keep the project to a minimum. In his correspondence he refers to it Rubens and His as a humble occupation,10 and he avoided going to France, where he Spanish Patrons had been instructed to travel in order to complete the commission.11 The fact that no trace of these portraits exists suggests that he must have painted only a few.12 The only documented commission that Rubens received from the Spanish court is an Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma on which he began to work in September of 1603. This is the most important work that emerged from the Spanish visit, and more will be said about it later. As far as is known, Rubens did not paint a portrait of the king at this point, apparently not yet having attained a status that warranted a royal sitting.13 During the years he had spent in Italy, Rubens had carefully studied antique sculpture and Renaissance works by artists such as Michelan- gelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Titian, and his visit to Spain offered him the chance to continue his studies. As we shall see, Rubens visited the royal collections and was impressed by the amount and quality of the paintings he saw there. But the only unequivocal evidence of Rubens' study of other artists at this time is a sheet that includes ®gures drawn by him after a painting of the Martyrdom of Saint James by FernaÂndez de Navarrete ``El Mudo,'' several drawings by Leonardo, and other, unidenti®ed sources.14 Navarrete's painting hung in El Escorial (where it remains today), and Rubens must have copied it there. Aside from the merits of the painting itself, Rubens' interest in this picture re¯ects the esteem in which this painter was held in the Spanish court, and it is an indication of the status the Spanish artist had gained since his early death in 1579.15 The drawings after Leonardo were probably copied from the collection of drawings by the great Florentine artist that the sculptor Pompeo Leoni had brought to Spain at the end of the sixteenth century.16 Rubens must have met Pompeo Leoni in Spain, either in Madrid, where the sculptor was based and where he is documented in the summer of 1603, or in Valladolid, where he also worked regularly.17 It was natural for the Italianized Rubens to seek out Italian company in Spain.

Load more