Motifs in Peter Paul Rubens's the Martyrdom of Saint

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113 ‘Indian’ motifs in Peter Paul Rubens’s The martyrdom of Saint Thomas and The miracles of Saint Francis Xavier* Barbara Uppenkamp Introduction In his painting for the altar of the Augustinian church in Prague representing the martyrdom of Saint Thomas in India, Peter Paul Rubens faced the difficult task of having to depict, as faithfully as possible, the unfamiliar location where the dramatic events unfurled (fig. 1).1 The legend that Thomas was an architect of Roman antiquity who went to India to build a palace might have prompted Rubens to combine elements of classical Roman architecture with others, which to him and his contemporaries would have suggested an Indian setting. The purpose of this study is to examine Rubens’s knowledge of Asian architecture and sculpture as deduced from sources that were available to him. To this end, reference will be made above all to the stock of his extensive library as documented by three sources.2 The most important of these are the journals of the Officina Plantiniana, where his book purchases are recorded. Besides this, Rubens’s wide-ranging correspondence gives an impression of the vast breadth of his erudition. Finally, the auction catalogue of the library belonging to his son Albert (1614-1657) indicates which books had probably been in Rubens’s possession, given that Albert inherited his father’s books.3 Accordingly, Rubens can be presumed to have owned the great cartographic works Civitates orbis terrarum by Georg Braun (1541-1622) and Frans Hogenberg (1535-1590), the Thesaurus geographicus by Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), and L’histoire des Indes de Portugal by Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (c. 1480-1559).4 Rubens bought India occidentalis and India orientalis, the sumptuously illustrated works in several volumes by the brothers Johann Theodor de Bry (1561-1623) and Johann Israel de Bry (1565-1609), in October 1613.5 The principal sources of the text and the images of De Bry’s India orientalis were the illustrated travel reports by Jan Huygen van Linschoten (c. 1553-1611) and Willem Lodewijcksz (d. 1604).6 Knowledge of India was conveyed not only through books but also through imported merchandise and artistic objects that were traded and collected in Antwerp.7 In order to gain a balanced notion of Rubens’s knowledge of Asian art this study will examine not only the Prague altarpiece of Saint Thomas the Apostle but also the altar painting The miracles of Saint Francis Xavier that was originally executed for the Jesuit church in Antwerp and is now located in Vienna.8 The central focus of this study lies on Rubens’s depictions of Indian architecture and sculpture, but it will also discuss various ways in which images were used and worshipped. In the period of Detail fig. 6.

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