These freely painted sketches were created by
Peter Paul Rubens in preparation for two ceiling
paintings, which explains their format and the
view from below. The scenes, drawn from the
New Testament, depict two episodes of the life
of Christ: on the left, he is being tempted by the
devil to turn stones into bread and to break his
fast. On the right, he crowns his mother, Mary,
as she ascends to heaven.
From these sketches, Rubens’s assistants created
the final paintings, which were part of a series of
39 large canvasses for the Church of Saint
Ignatius of Loyola in Antwerp. Completed in
1621, the paintings were destroyed by fire a
century later when lightning struck the church.

'Count Antoine Seilern’s collection held over
60 works by Rubens. The sketch of Saint Gregory
(on the adjacent wall) was his first painting by
the artist, purchased in 1933, just as Seilern
started studying art history at Vienna University.
He especially loved to reconstruct lost painting
projects by buying related studies, as is the case
with the two sketches here.’
Helen Martin-Leake, honorary curator, the Courtauld Gallery,
and biographer of Count Antoine Seilern