Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba

These freely painted sketches were created by Peter Paul Rubens in preparation for two ceiling paintings, which explains the view from below. The scenes, drawn from the Old Testament, have a similar composition — a seated male ruler speaking to a female visitor. Both were modelled on decorations by the Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese, whose work Rubens saw in Venice.

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.

Courtauld Insight

‘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"