(1577 –1640) Was Already Renowned Throughout Europe During His Lifetime; Today He Is Rightly Celebrated As the Greatest Painter of the Flemish Baroque

Home , Ecce Homo (Rubens), Helena Fourment, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Peter Paul Rubens

OCTOBER 17, 2017 – PETER PAUL RUBENS JANUARY 21, 2018 THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION Peter Paul Rubens (1577 –1640) was already renowned throughout Europe during his lifetime; today he is rightly celebrated as the greatest painter of the Flemish Baroque. The Kunsthistorisches Museum owns around forty paintings by him and his workshop. They include both exuberantly coloured, multi- figured masterpieces such as, for example, the huge altarpieces he produced for the Jesuit church at Antwerp, and intimate compositions like The Fur, Head of Medusa or his late Self- Portrait.

In the autumn of 2017 the Kunsthistorisches Museum is honouring this giant of European art history with a major exhibition. The Museum’s extensive holdings will be augmented by numerous international loans, creating a spectacular ensemble. Visitors will be able to discover Rubens' oeuvre in a wide range of media, such as drawings, oil sketches, panel paintings and large- scale canvases. The main focus of the exhibition is on the master’s creativity: Rubens had an uncanny ability to utilise, to be inspired by the works of other artists. He continued this dialogue with the paintings of precursors and contemporaries throughout his life, and it impacted his work throughout a career that spanned five decades. The artist continually changed and altered his own compositions, and often these recourses make his work appear modern and dynamic. However, these relationships and connections are not recognizable at first glance: the exhibition therefore invites the visitor to comprehend and experience Rubens' surprising perspectives by himself. This is why the show features not only works by Rubens but also classical and Renaissance sculptures as well as paintings by great masters such as Titian or Caravaggio, works that helped Rubens to develop his idiosyncratic and radically novel pictorial formulas.

February 8, – May 21, 2018 the exhibition will be on show at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.

The exhibition is curated by Gerlinde Gruber, Curator of Flemish Baroque painting, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Stefan Weppelmann, Director of the Picture Gallery, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien and Jochen Sander, Adjunct director and curator of German, Dutch and Flemish paintings, Städel Museum, Frankfurt.

PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS

These images may be used free of charge when writing about the exhibition; to download them please go to http://press.khm.at.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) Self-Portrait canvas, 110 cm x 85,5 cm c. 1638 © KHM-Museumsverband

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) Crown of Thorns (Ecce Homo) wood, 125,7 x 96 cm no later than 1612 © The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg 2016

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) Centaur 1600/1608 drawing chalk (black), paper Köln, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud Graphische Sammlung, Inv.-Nr. Z 05888 © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) The Four Rivers of Paradise canvas, 110 cm x 85,5 cm c. 1615 © KHM-Museumsverband

Titian (c. 1488 Pieve di Cadore - 1576 Venice) Girl in a Fur c. 1535 canvas, 95,5 cm x 63,7 cm © KHM-Museumsverband

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) Helena Fourment in a Fur Robe c. 1636/1638 wood, 176 x 83 cm © KHM-Museumsverband

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) The Judgement of Paris ca. 1638 oil on canvas 199 x 381 cm ©Museo Nacional del Prado

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) The Lamentation wood, 40,5 x 52,5 cm 1614 © KHM-Museumsverband

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) The Head of Medusa wood, 68,5 x 118 cm c. 1617/18 © KHM-Museumsverband

Colubrid (cast from nature) Padua, 16th century bronze, l. 18,6 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Kunstkammer © KHM-Museumsverband

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp) Rubens over Anonymous Italian after Titian Part of the Crowd at the Ecce Homo black and red chalk, pen and black ink on laid paper drawing, 32,4 x 41 cm © National Gallery of Art, Washington

OPENING HOURS AND ENTRANCE FEES Tuesdays – Sundays, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Thursdays until 9 p.m.

June, July and August open daily!

Annual Ticket € 34 Adults € 15 Vienna Card € 14 Concessions € 11 NEW: Annual ticket under 25 € 19 Children under 19 free Group ticket (p.p.) € 11 Guided Tour € 3

Buy your online-tickets at: https://shop.khm.at/en/ticket-shop/

CATALOGUE A catalogue in German and English is published in conjunction with the exhibition.

PRESS CONTACT Nina Auinger-Sutterlüty, MAS Head of Communication and Public Relations T +43 1 525 24 - 4021 [email protected]

KHM-Museumsverband Wissenschaftliche Anstalt öffentlichen Rechts Burgring 5, 1010 Vienna www.khm.at