A rediscovered painting by 17th Century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens titled “The Massacre of the Innocents” fetched a stunning price of 49,5 million sterling (US $ 76,7 millions) during a sale held in London by Sotheby's on July 10th 2002.
This 142 x 182 cm oil on panel, which carried only an estimate of between $ 5,8 and 8,7 million dollars, was bought by Sam Fogg, a London dealer specialising in manuscripts, on behalf of a collector.While this record bid has been the highest ever reached for a work by an Old Master it has however been suggested that the final buyer might be the Getty Museum.
This impressive work has been recently rediscovered and was known only through a reference to it in an Antwerp inventory of 1689, together with a correspondence between the Forchondt brothers prior to and after its sale by them to the Prince of Liechtenstein in Vienna, probably in 1702 or shortly before and through a studio replica adapted to a slightly different format in Brussels.
In the 1763 Liechtenstein inventory it was listed as by Frans de Neve together with a “Samson and Delilah”- in fact also by Rubens- as by Jan van den Hoecke and, in the inventory of 1780, by which time both pictures were hanging in neighbouring rooms, and in subsequent inventories until 1873, it appeared as by Van den Hoecke.
From the second half of the 19th Century, the painting had always been known as by Jan van den Hoecke until its correct identification in the late 2001. In this it has much in common with the “Samson and Delilah” bought by the National Gallery in London in 1982, which is a key work in the understanding of “The Massacre of the Innocents”. Both works date from almost exactly the same point in Rubens' career (between 1609 and 1611) and they were sold by the Forchondt brothers to Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein around 1698 or shortly after and both were mis-identified in the Liechtenstein inventories as by the late Rubens follower Jan van den Hoecke (1611-1651). The “Samson and Delilah”, sold by the Liechtensteins in circa 1880, was recognised as by Rubens in the 1920s, but the work sold by Sotheby's was still assumed to be by Van den Hoecke until a few months ago, the reason being that Rubens' style kept being misunderstood up to now on.
Van Hoecke was the foremost follower of Rubens' style in Vienna and had worked in his studio in Antwerp in the 1630s before going to Rome shortly before 1640. He became Court Painter to the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Vienna and his early works showed a strong dependence on Rubens' late style but after his Italian sojourn, his work was more classicising, showing the strong influence of Guido Reni and Van Dyck whom he both copied much but his dry style and the attenuated figures to be seen in his works are far removed from “The Massacre of the Innocents” or the London “Samson and Delilah”.
The painting sold in London probably originally belonged to Giacomo Antonio Carenna, a rich merchant from Milan who hanged it in his Hotel on the Meir in Antwerp as it was listed in an inventory drawn up to accompany his will by the Notary Ambrosius Sebille in March 1669.
It then went to his eldest son Giovanni Francesco Carenna before it was sold at auction in Antwerp with all his properties in June 1691 shortly after the latter's death. The work was eventually acquired by Guillermo Forchondt or entrusted to him for sale as it was recorded in 1698 in a letter sent from Vienna by his brother Marcus. The Forchondt brothers, who were the leading dealers in Antwerp, presumably sold that work to the Prince of Liechtenstein by 1702 and it stayed in the family in Vienna until June 11th 1920, when it was bought by the Viennese dealer Glückselig who in turn sold it during the same year to the father of the present owner, a Dresden resident. It was then inherited by his wife when he died at 41 in 1923 before it passed to their daughter, who is living in Vienna.
From 1973, the painting had been placed on loan at Stift Reichersberg, Upper Austria, where it remained until recently.
According to the letters sent from Vienna by Marcus Forchondt to his brother,Prince Liechstentein apparently first refused to acquire the “Massacre of the Innocents”, the reason being that he felt that it had been painted by Rubens during his training in Italy meaning that he did not consider it as a masterpiece. The prince apparently changed his mind eventually since the painting was delivered to him during the summer of 1702.
The subject of that painting depicts one of the most horrific events in the Bible that took place when Herod, learning of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, there worshipped by the Three Wise Men as King of the Jews, and as foretold by the prophet, had all the infants in the land of Bethlehem murdered, unaware that the Holy Family had fled to Egypt.
Rubens returned from Italy to Flanders in Autumn 1608 after learning that his mother was ill but by the time he reached Antwerp on December 11th, she was already dead. On his return he was deluged with commissions and decided to stay in Antwerp, where he married his first wife, Isabella Brandt.
The “Massacre of the Innocents” is believed to have been painted after the “Samson and Delilah” work between 1609 and 1611. The ambitious and complex composition of this group of interlocked figures, is something entirely new in Flemish art, and announces the Baroque. Considered as highly precocious, the basic form being that of an inverted equilateral triangle, so that the base is formed by the male figure to the right. However, the heads of the central group form a flattened circle, which, reinforced by the twisting of their bodies underneath, imparts a sense of savage energy to the inherently static triangle, and holds the composition together visually.
The picture must have had an extraordinary impact on a Flemish public that would have been quite unprepared for it. The traditional depiction of this subject in Flanders, based on Pieter Bruegel's prototype, known in innumerable repetitions by his son's workshop and others, shows expressionless latter-day soldiers slaughtering peasant children in the snow in a quotidian act of cruelty. By contrast, Rubens' painting is a brutal, unrestrained and intensely physical depiction of an orgy of violence as is far removed from Bruegel's works and those by his followers. On this occasion, Rubens drew fully on his Italian experience with Roman military costumes and ruins and such composition owed much to classical sources.
Rubens was well aware of works by latter-day artists and architects in Rome and this work exhales many sources of inspiration drawn during his Roman stay, notably Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of “The Massacre of the innocents” made after a lost design by Raphael.
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