This week in La Gazette: Rubens in Mantua with a spectacular battle of the Amazons

 

With the first showing this previous unseen work on the occasion of the exhibition "Rubens. A Master in the Making" exhibition in London in 2005, David Jaffé made no secret of his enthusiasm: "It seems almost possible to perceive the shrieks coming from open mouths, as well as the clangor of trumpet blasts, as horses and riders come to impale themselves on the descending phalanx of spears."

The National Gallery curator marveled at "the passage just above the wounded horse in the lower left-hand corner, a particularly seductive passage of yellows and pinks - the animal's two spurts of blood evoking the Battle of Milvian Bridge in Raphael' s studio. The palette lends the scene a dreamlike quality, despite the macabre presence of severed heads and impaled bodies." Similarly, he considered as one of the most accomplished passages "the prancing horse on the far right, whose slightly dappled rump stands out delicately, as does the leopard-skin saddle cloth; the line of soldiers winding in the background is also noteworthy, as if already caught up - almost swallowed up - by the dust it raises."