This recently rediscovered self-portrait was painted by Sir Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp circa 1610-1611, shortly after his return from an eight-year sojourn in Italy, where he came of age as an artist. Rubens was then about thirty-three years old. At exactly the t.mes he portrayed himself here, he was establishing himself as the greatest European painter north of the Alps. This painting is almost certainly coeval with his magnificent Raising of the Cross triptych, painted for the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp and still in situ, a work that together with others from around the same moment announces the Baroque style in Northern European art. In this small-scale painting Rubens adapts the boundless energy of his large-scale works to capture his own features on an intimate scale. It is swiftly painted with an economy of brushwork that would become characteristic of his portraits, most of which he produced in the succeeding decade.

As is detailed in this catalogue entry, the portrait remained in Rubens’s possession and that of his descendants until 1853. Its provenance thereafter is unbroken until 1894. Subsequently, it emerged in the possession of a Swedish collects or John Åke Truls Wiberg (1902–1963) and was sold in Sweden in 2021.

Given how busy Rubens was at the t.mes he painted this self-portrait, it is hardly surprising that it is executed in a rapid, sketch-like manner. The panel in its current form comprises a central, original section measuring 55.5 by 40.0 cm that was subsequently enlarged at all the sides, the original part being set into a later panel.¹ Rubens almost always painted sketches and sketch-like paintings (including landscapes) on fragments or offcuts of oak planks, presumably left over from other projects in his studio (paradoxically a practice not adopted by his pupils and collaborators such as Jacob Jordaens and Anthony van Dyck). One cannot be sure if this was the present panel's genesis, however, as the central section comprises a plank of western European oak with a very broad grain running in a curve from lower left to upper right (and Baltic oak additions). Such panels are often found in paintings, including works to which Rubens contributed the figures, by his contemporaries such as the Brueghel brothers, so that the use of such a panel—often comprising a single large plank—is not at all unusual. The panels do however tend to warp in compound curves, which may explain the present panel's subsequent treatment, presumably carried out in the nineteenth century. The important point is that the central original panel here contains Rubens’s intended (and completed by him as intended) self-portrait.

Speculation about the original dimensions of the panel only becomes relevant when comparing this self-portrait with Rubens’s strikingly similar portrait of his brother Philip Rubens, now in Detroit (fig. 1).² The handling and brushwork in both portraits are very similar. The depiction of Philip today appears slightly more finished, perhaps because the painting may have been intended as a present, but also because Philip is wearing a more elaborate ruff, which inevitably required more care than Rubens’s own simple unadorned white collar. The rapidly brushed backgrounds in both are also very similar, as are the sparsely indicated cost.mes s. While both portraits may not have necessarily sprung from an urge on Rubens’s part to record his and his brother’s appearances simultaneously, the placement and proportions of the sitter in each would have been very similar (55.5 by 40.0 and 68.6 by 53.7 cm., respectively).

The painter's elder brother, Philip Rubens (1574-1611) was a renowned humanist and pupil of Justus Lipsius. From 1601 to 1607 Philip lived in Rome, where Peter Paul lodged with him. Rubens portrayed himself and Philip together with Lipsius and Johannes Woverius in a painting dating circa 1611-1612 known anecdotally as "The Four Philosophers," now at the Galleria Palatina, Florence (fig. 2). Believed to have adorned Philip Rubens’s tomb, the work was probably painted to commemorate his early death in 1611.³ Although the Detroit portrait is somet.mes s thought to be posthumous, it certainly looks to have been painted ad vivum. Philip appears in what is probably Rubens’s first self-portrait, in which the brothers appear side-by-side with four other friends now in Cologne (fig. 3).⁴ They are set in a crepuscular landscape that has been definitively identified as a view from Mantua's Palazzo Ducale, where the work was almost certainly painted circa 1602-1604.

In a celebrated self-portrait of circa 1609 (fig. 4), Rubens portrayed himself with his wife Isabella Brant in a garden setting; the painting, often referred to as "The Honeysuckle Bower," is today in Munich.⁵ Instantly recognizable, Rubens appears with arched eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, puckered lips, aquiline nose, flourishing moustache, and what would become known as a “Van Dyck goatee.” His receding hairline (already noticeable in the Mantua and The Four Philosophers paintings) is less pronounced than in the present self-portrait, yet he looks rather younger than his thirty-two years, and scarcely older than in the Mantua painting from several years earlier. As is evident from Rubens’s later self-portraits (such as that of 1623 in the Royal collects ion, London, in which he looks younger than forty-six), Rubens was not averse to making himself appear more youthful on occasion. The present self-portrait, by contrast, seems more honest: the artist looks like a man in his early thirties.⁶

An examination of Rubens’s technique in the present work reveals a number of characteristics familiar from his other paintings, especially sketch-like ones.⁷ He started by rapidly applying a light brown background, leaving a reserve for the head. Once completed, he filled in the reserve, in a few places covering some strands of hair. Exactly this technique can be seen in the Detroit portrait of Philip Rubens (fig. 1). One of Rubens’s devices for creating the impression of life in his sitters was to underpaint sections of flesh with shades of red and blue that would show through the translucent, skin-colored glazes above, thereby breathing life into his renderings. This phenomenon is observable in many of his early works, including this self-portrait and that of his brother. In Rubens's portraits of his close relatives and friends, he would leave the clothing sketched so as to direct the viewer's attention to the face, rather than the clothing. Here, the suit is deliberately dark so as to make the face appear lighter. By so doing, he sought to give to the portrait an intense vivacity. In the earliest four self-portraits in which Rubens represents himself alone, he always wears a roughly sketched-in black garment, similar to the one he wears here. These cost.mes s are often composed of the same elements: a cloak or cape on one shoulder, simple buttoned doublet with epaulette, and flat white lace collar. Such clothing is characterized by its sobriety and non finito appearance; for Rubens’s official portraits, cost.mes s appear more elaborate and refined.

We are grateful to Hans Vlieghe and Otto Naumann for sharing their thoughts on this painting following first-hand inspection. Both endorse Rubens’s authorship. Hans Vlieghe views the head in its entirety and perhaps the collar as being from Rubens’s hand. It is not impossible that the painted surface in the peripheral areas, and especially the fugitive black pigment, have, like the panel itself, undergone a measure of metamorphosis due to the passage of t.mes and various conservation measures. However, it is important to note that the rapidly sketched black cost.mes in the well-preserved Portrait of Philip Rubens, the Artists Brother (fig. 1) almost completely lacks form and volume, despite every brushstroke being legible. As such, there is no reason to think that the present self-portrait looked any different. That there was a reserve left for the collar, which is very freely painted wet-in-wet, leaves no doubt that it too formed part of the original conception.

We are also grateful to Professor Nils Büttner for confirming that the work will be included in a future Addenda and Corrigenda volume of the Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard.

A NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THE PAINTING

On 16 September 1639, a codicil was added to the 1631 will of Rubens and his wife Helena Fourment. It stated that the children from Rubens’s first and second marriages were to be treated equally following his death.⁸ On 27 May 1640, three days before his death, Rubens drew up his final will and test.mes nt, in which he made a number of stipulations concerning his children, including repeating that the children from both marriages should be treated equally.⁹ His books were to go to Albert Rubens; the agates and medals to Albert and Nicolaas; the drawings collects ed or made by Rubens were to be assembled for a son or son-in-law who might wish to become an artist. Rubens's works of art (paintings, sculptures, etc.) were to be sold in due course; portraits, however, were to be treated separately. Those depicting the artist and his wives were to go to his children with those respective wives, but the passage in the will concerning self-portraits is potentially ambiguous: “the portraits of the testator’s wives and of himself corresponding thereto.”¹⁰ This passage might be interpreted that self-portraits of himself with either wife were to go to the children of the wife portrayed and that self-portraits of the artist alone were to go to the children of the wife to whom he was married at the t.mes of the portrait's creation, but the subsequent history of the present self-portrait in the van Parys family proves that this self-portrait (together with portraits of both of Rubens’s wives) remained with Helena Fourment’s children: either Frans Rubens (1633-1678) or his sister Clara Johanna (1632-1689), whose children were marrying cousins and thus would have reunited their parents' inheritances. Thus it is certain that upon Rubens's death the present self-portrait was inherited by one of his and Helena Fourment's two children, thereafter passing by one or the other to the Van Parys family.

Clara Johanna Rubens, the eldest of Rubens’ five children with Helena Fourment (see fig. 5) married Philippe Constantin van Parys, Lord of Merksem and Dambrugge, on 13 May 1655.¹¹ Rubens portrayed Helena Fourment with Clara Johanna and their second child, Frans in a charming portrait today in Paris (fig. 6).¹² Frans Rubens, again depicted by his father in a drawing of circa 1635 in Dresden married Suzanna Charles in 1661.¹³ Together they had four children who survived infancy, one of whom, Catherine Rubens married her cousin Philippe van Parys (see below). Of the remaining three children, Isabella Helena (1635-1652) remained unmarried, Peter Paul (1637-1684) became a priest, and Constantia Albertina (1641-1709 or 1712) became a nun. As dictated by the 1639 codicil and 1640 final will and test.mes nt, Rubens's children with his first wife Isabella Brant were treated equally.¹⁴ They likewise inherited works of art that descended in the family until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when inherited by Rubens’s granddaughter Helena Francisca, who married Jan-Baptist Lunden. The works of art in this line of inheritance, however, are document and an unaccounted-for self-portrait is not among them.

Clara Johanna Rubens and Philippe Constantin van Parys had several children, the first of whom Jacob Ignatius was baptized on 25 March 1656. The present painting's subsequent provenance, however, makes it highly likely that the work was instead inherited by Philippe Constantin van Parys (named for his father), who had four children with his wife and first cousin, Catherine Françoise Rubens. The youngest of the four, Jean-Baptiste Jacques van Parys (d. 1787), Canon of Saint James's Church, Antwerp, inherited five paintings by Rubens upon his father's death in 1699. The present work is the first described in Guillaume Pierre Mensaert's 1763 publication on collects ions in the Low Countries (see fig. 7): "Canon Parys...owns, among other rare paintings, a portrait of Rubens, another portrait of a man, and two portraits representing Rubens's second and third [sic] wives, and a Christ on the Cross, all by this famous Master."¹⁵

Upon Jean-Baptiste Jacques van Parys’s death on 24 April 1787, his eldest sister, Isabelle Alexandrine Josephine van Parys inherited his collects ion. On 11 October 1729, she had married François Charles Hyacinthe Joseph, Count di Respani and together they had a daughter, Catherine Hyacinthe Ghislaine Respani, who inherited the work. On 2 July 1763, Catherine married Jean-Baptiste, Vicomte van der Fosse. They had six children, of whom their eldest son, Alexandre François Ghislaine, Vicomte van der Fosse inherited the picture, which subsequently passed to his daughter Justine van der Fosse, Countess van der Stegen de Schrieck.

Upon the Countess's death in 1853, the Van der Fosse de Schrieck heirs consigned the entire collects ion, under the name "M[onsieur] Van Parys" (presumably due to that collects ion's renown), to auction. Although it had been expanded since the t.mes of Clara Johanna, at the collects ion's core were the two portraits of Rubens’s wives and the present self-portrait. The catalogue’s foreword indicates that all three works came from the collects ion of the Van der Fosse de Schrieck heirs, descendants of Jean-Baptiste Jacques van Parys, Canon of St James’s Church, Antwerp, and Rubens’s great-grandson and heir. The introduction concluded, "Thus we can affirm that these three precious works have not ceased to belong to his descendants since the death of P.-P. Rubens; they have been preserved religiously and intact for more than two centuries, in the same family, with all the respect and veneration that such works inspire."¹⁶

The present self-portrait, listed as “Portrait of Rubens" (fig. 8), was accompanied by the following description: “His large and prominent brow is framed by thick, curly hair, over his lips are thin moustaches, whose extremities blend in with the beard that covers the lower part of the face. About his shoulders a coat is thrown, over which a white collar is folded. The expression in this portrait is striking; all the various lines of the physiognomy are artistically drawn and point to an energetic character. H[eight]. 55 cm. L[ength]. 40 1/2 cm. Wood."

The dimensions of the present painting's central panel accord exactly with the dimensions in the Van Parys sale catalogue, indicating that the work had not yet been enlarged at that t.mes . At this sale the painting was purchased for the substantial amount of 1,900 francs by the French dealer Georges Edouard Warneck on behalf of Dr. Leroy d’Étiolles. In an 1856 Belgian legal case, Leroy d’Étiolles reported that Warneck was his "usual guide in the purchase of paintings," confirming that the dealer had acquired the painting for him. Upon the dispersal of Dr. Leroy d’Étiolles’s collects ion at auction on 21-22 February 1861, less than eight years after the Van Parys sale, the present painting appears as lot 101: “Portrait of a man (Rubens himself?). W[ood. — H[eight]. 0.62 — L[ength]. 0. 51 cm." It is described as a “Bust portrait, three-quarters to the right; bare-headed, moustache and pointed beard in the style of Louis XIII; plain collar, folded down, black doublet. Neutral background. This energetic and colorful painting must be from the period of Rubens, returning from Italy, being influenced by the Venetians — around 1610? The subject appears to be about thirty years old, which would be the age of Rubens at that t.mes .” While the description matches the present painting precisely, the measurements suggest that by then it must have been partly enlarged.

At the Leroy d’Étiolles sale the present painting was acquired for 3,000 francs (one of the most expensive lots in the sale) by the lawyer Adolphe-Henry Guignot, presumably on behalf of the next owner, Auguste Louis Joseph de Morny, for whom Guignot often acted anonymously. A half-brother of Napoleon III, the Duc de Morny was a significant paintings collects or, who in the late 1830s began buying and regularly reselling paintings via public auction and private sale, often under a pseudonym. His name appears in the provenance—"collects ion of Duc de Morny. Dr. Leroy D’Étiolles."—listed by Sedelmeyer Gallery, in whose 1894 catalogue the present work appears. The catalogue describes it: “Bust: slightly turned to the right; three-quarter face, Bare-headed; dense hair of a dark chestnut colour; moustache and small, pointed beard. Dark cloak, hanging loose; long, white collar. Panel, 1 ft. 11 ½ in. by 1 ft. 7 in." (about 59.7 by 48.3 cm). The work's given dimensions are slightly smaller than previous recorded, suggesting they may have been taken when the painting was still framed. Following the painting's publication in Sedelmeyer's Illustrated Catalogue of 100 Paintings of Old Masters, which marked the first instance of the work's photographic reproduction, Ludwig Burchard, the foremost authority on Rubens at the t.mes , recognized Rubens's authorship of the painting, which he connected with the artist's Portrait of Philip Rubens, the Artist's Brother (fig. 1).¹⁷

The painting next appears in the collects ion of Swedish engineer and industrialist Carl Robert Lamm, who sold the work in February 1923 at the American Art Galleries in New York. The illustrated catalogue evocatively describes the painting as a “Head and shoulders portrait of a man of definitely modeled features, broad and bulbous of forehead, slender nose and sensitive mouth, dark eyes set well back. Reddish-chestnut hair worn at generous length, full in volume and brushed at once with freedom and with care”; it also cites expertises supporting the attribution to Rubens written by Max Rooses, Hofstede de Groot, and Dr. Wilhelm Bode. Purchased at the auction by one “A. Schmidt,” the painting soon returned to Sweden: by 1942, it had been acquired by entrepreneur and politician John Åke Truls Wiberg, whose art collects ion included paintings by Old Masters such as Rubens, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Van Dyck. Wiberg’s prior ownership was noted in the provenance of the painting's subsequent sale in Uppsala, Sweden on 15-18 June 2021, where it appeared unrecognized with an attribution to the Circle of Anthony van Dyck.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

The original panel is of western European oak, whereas the additions are of Baltic oak. There appear to have been two alterations to the painting's dimensions, and consequently, its appearance. Between the Van Parys sale in 1853 and the Leroy d’Etiolles sale in 1861, the panel was expanded by 7 cm in height and 10.5 cm in width. This was done by adding vertical panels at left and right, and more narrow horizontal panels top and bottom. After 1894, the panting was again enlarged at bottom through the addition of a horizontal strip of 6.5 cm in height. It is not clear, however, when the original panel was set into its Baltic oak support, which can be seen on the reverse, but this likely occurred during the first phase of enlarging, probably to address the original plank's incipient warping.

¹ Taylor Stonor Richardson's report, 25 October 2023.

² Rubens in Private: The Master Portrays his Family, exhibition catalogue, B. van Beneden (ed.), London 2015, pp. 156-157, cat. no. 12, reproduced.

³ Rubens in Private, p. 43, reproduced.

⁴ Rubens in Private, pp. 146-147, cat. no. 7, reproduced.

⁵ Rubens in Private, p. 41, reproduced.

⁶ inv. no. RCIN 400156. Rubens in Private, pp. 136-137, cat. no. 2, reproduced. In addition to present painting and the 1623 self-portrait in the Royal collects ions, Rubens only depicted himself in standalone self-portraits on four occasions: in circa 1604-1605 (Antwerp, private collects ion, on loan to the Rubens & Women exhibition, Dulwich Picture Gallery, through 28 January 2024); circa 1615 (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1890 no. 1764); circa 1623-1630 (Antwerp, Rubenshuis); and circa 1638-1640 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 527). On the first, see J. Scott, in Rubens & Women, exhibition catalogue, B. van Beneden and A. Orrock (eds.), London 2023, p. 78, cat. no. 1, reproduced.

⁷ See Richardson's report, 25 October 2023.

⁸ Rubens in Private, p. 250.

⁹ Rubens in Private, pp. 250-251.

¹⁰ "de Counterfeytsels [portraits] van syns testateurs huysvrouwen ende van hem selven daerop corresponderende," quoted in Rubens in Private, p. 251.

¹¹ Rubens in Private, pp. 224-225, cat. no. 35, reproduced.

¹² Rubens in Private, pp. 217-219, cat. no. 32, reproduced. The painting was preceded by a circa 1632 sketch-like self-portrait with Helena Fourment, Nicolaas Rubens (the painter's son with Isabella Brant), and Clara Johanna as an infant today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no. 662).

¹³ Kupferstichkabinett, inv. no. C962. See Rubens in Private, pp. 222-223, cat. no. 34, reproduced.

¹⁴ The distribution of Rubens's estate appears to have taken several years and was punctuated by the marriages of several of his children (and the production of their own wills). A notarial deed of 24 January 1643 records the distribution of the estate between the children from both his first and second marriages. See Rubens in Private, p. 252.

¹⁵ "Le Chanoine Parys...posséde entr’autres tableaux rares, le portrait de Rubens, un autre portrait d’homme, & deux portraits qui représentent la seconde & la troisième femmes de Rubens, & un Christ en croix; le tout de la main de ce fameux Maître." Mansaert 1763, p. 262. The author seems to have lived under the misapprehension that Rubens was married three t.mes s, rather than twice.

¹⁶ "Ainsi nous pouvons affirmer que ces trois précieuses productions n'ont pas cessé, depuis le décès de P.-P. Rubens, d'appartenir à ses descendants; elles ont été conservées religieusement et intactes pendant plus de deux siècles, dans une même famille, avec tout le respect et la vénération que de telles oeuvres inspirent."

¹⁷ We are grateful to Nils Büttner for bringing this to our attention.