PETER PAUL RUBENS (cerchia di)
(Siegen, 1577 - Antwerp, 1640)
The Horrors of War
Oil on copper, cm 70X87.5
Provenance:
London, Stanley, March 2, 1824, lot 69
St. Petersburg, Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin Collection
Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Pillet, May 24, 1872, lot 2; (acquired during this sale by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and by descent to the Maurice Edmond Charles de Rothschild collection (1881 -1957). Seized and stored at the Jeu de Paume Transferred to the Peter Lager in September 1942 and to Buxheim; Repatriated to France on March 27, 1946 and returned)
Paris, Roger Brocas Collection, aka Yves Picart
Paris, private collection
Paris, Artcurial, June 9, 2021, lot 144
Italy, private collection
Bibliography:
N. Bühner, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. XII. Allegories and Subjects from Literature, London 1968, vol. 1, pp. 265-266, no. 14
The painting is taken from one of Pietro Paolo Rubens' last creations executed in 1638 and given by him to the Flemish painter Giusto Sustermans, then an artist at the Medici court. The painting was sent to Florence with an accompanying letter describing the subject, in 1691 Sustermans' heirs sold it to Ferdinando dei Medici, who received it into his collections, and today it is placed in the Mars Room of the Pitti Palace. The scene depicts Mars sowing death and destruction while Venus tries to restrain him by countering Discord who incites the god not to appease his fury. Significant is the detail of Mars stomping on a book and causing a young woman with a lute and a man with a compass to crash to the ground, alluding to the liberal arts, and the female figure behind Venus is the personification of Europe, which, according to Rubens, suffered plunder, outrage, and misery, probably referring to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The copper under consideration, therefore, must have been painted in the short span of time before his expedition to Florence or taken from a drawing by the master, it being understood that the execution on copper and the quality denote a prestigious destination.
