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Temptation (recto)

Maker

(artist)
1577-1640

Title

Temptation (recto)

Date of Production

(circa) 1610

Medium

graphite, pen and brown ink, brown wash (recto and verso) on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 27.4 cm
Width: 10.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1978.PG.55.2

Mode of Acquisition

Count Antoine Seilern, bequest, 1978

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

These ornamental frames were probably intended as borders for book illustrations. The New Testament subjects they were to contain are indicated by Rubens’s Latin inscriptions: Pentecost, Christ’s Ascension and Resurrection. For almost thirty years, Rubens collaborated with the Plantin publishing house in Antwerp, for which he designed around fifty publications. A 1613 Roman missal he illustrated featured similar ornamental frames.

Notes

The purpose of this design (along with D.1978.PG.55.1) is unknown, but they were probably intended for book illustrations for a new edition of the Vulgate, as the style resembles that of other drawings certainly made for engraved illustrations, as seen in a set of drawings in the Morgan Library (Fl. 17) used in a 1613 Missal.A.E. Popham dated these two sheets to c. 1610 based on their stylistic resemblance to the design for the tomb of Jean Richardot. The frames on the verso had been suggested as designs for ceiling compartments, but as one of them is shown hanging from chains, this would be impossible.

Provenance

William Young Ottley (1771-1836); his sales at Thomas Philipe, London, 10 July 1807, lot 512, and 17 June 1814, lot 1173, with D.1978.PG.55.1 (shillings 1,11) [this information supplied by Logan and Belkin 2023; 1807 catalogue not available online, but 1814 is on Brill, though no known copies of the catalogue are annotated with buyers' names]; Sir Thomas Lawrence, London (1769-1830), L.2445; ceded by his executors to Samuel Woodburn (London), 1835; Woodburn estate sale, Christie’s (London), 4 - 8 June 1860, lot 809; purchased there by Sir Thomas Phillips (1792-1872); by descent to his grandson, Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (1856-1938); purchased from the Fenwick estate by Count Antoine Seilern, London (1901-1978), 1946; Princes Gate Bequest 1978

Exhibition History

Drawings Gallery Display - Reading Drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 21/01/2017-04/06/2017

Captured on Paper, Animals in the Prints and Drawings Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 20/06/2002-11/08/2002

Rubens - Paintings, Drawings and Prints in the Princes Gate
Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 06/10/1988-08/01/1989

Literature

Logan, Anne-Marie in association with Kristin Lohse Belkin, Anne-Marie Logan in association with Kristin Lohse Belkin, The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens. A Critical Catalogue, Volume Two (1609-1620), 2 vols, Turnhout, 2023
I, no. 253
II, figs. 355 (recto), 356 (verso)

Herremans, Valerie, Rubens: Architecture and Sculpture. Architectural Sculpture, Brecht Vanoppen and Arnout Balis (eds.), CRLB XXII (4), 2019
pp. 68, 70

Kopecky, Veronika, ‘Die Beischriften des Peter Paul Rubens. Überlegungen zu handschriftlichen Vermerken auf Zeichnungen’, PhD diss., University of Hamburg, 2012
I, pp. 8, 52, 58; II, no. 9; III, nos. 9 (recto), 9v (verso)
ill. in vol. II, no. 9 ...More

Wood, Jeremy, Rubens: copies and adaptations from Renaissance and later artists. Italian artists. I Raphael and his school (CRLB), London 2010
I, p. 192 under no. 20
II, fig. 37 (recto)

Belkin, Kristin Lohse, Rubens: copies and adaptations from Renaissance and later artists. (1), German and Netherlandish artists (CRLB), London 2009
pp. 91-92 under no. 2

d'Hulst, R.A. and M. Vandenven, Rubens: the Old Testament (CRLB), London 1989
no. 2
figs. 3 (recto), 2 (verso, erroneously published as verso to D.1978.PG.55.1)

Rubens - Paintings, Drawings and Prints in the Princes Gate Collection, Courtauld Gallery, London, 1988-1989
cat. no. 28b
and pp. 2, 41
ill. on p. 24 (recto)
dated c. 1610

Held, Julius S., Rubens: selected drawings, Oxford 1986 (2nd ed.)
p. 39

Judson, J. Richard and Carl van de Velde, Rubens: Book illustrations and title-pages (CRLB), London 1978
I, p. 96 note 1 under no. 7a

Seilern, Count Antoine, Corrigenda and Addenda to the Catalogue of paintings and drawings at 56 Princes Gate, London, London 1971
no. 55

Martin, John Rupert, Rubens: the ceiling paintings for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp (CRLB), London 1968
p. 31 note 17

Held, Julius S., Rubens: selected drawings, London 1959
p. 45

Seilern, Count Antoine, Flemish paintings & drawings at 56 Princes Gate, London SW 7, London 1955; I
no. 55
pls. CVII (recto), CVIII (verso)

Popham, A.E., Catalogue of drawings in the collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, now in the possession of his grandson T. FitzRoy Phillipps Fenwick of Thirlestaine House Cheltenham, London 1935
no. 5b on p. 195
pl. LXXXVII (recto) ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: none.

Collector's mark: Recto: lower left, blindstamped: Sir Thomas Lawrence (L.2445).

Inscription: Recto: right centre, brown ink, artist’s hand: “qui si fara Il peccato / d Adamo di lontano / Et Inanzi Il cacciam[ento] / loro del paradiso”. Verso: all graphite and repeated below in brown ink, artist’s hand: in upper frame: “11 [written over “6”] Missio Spiritus Sancti”; in centre frame: “10 [written over “7”] / Ascensio Cristi”; in lower frame: “9 / Resurrectio Cristi”; left edge, cut off: “[…]nno”.

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