Peter Paul Rubens: 9 works

'The very freely painted sketch, with 'All Saints' as its subject, was later developed by Rubens in a drawing.'

'Rubens depicted the moment that Psyche catches her first glimpse of Cupid; she is seated on the edge of the bed in which he sleeps, holding a lamp from which oil would drip and waken him. Rubens used a male model for the study, softening his musculature in the painting into the artist's more familiar fleshy forms.'

'While this wagon recurs in several paintings, Peter Paul Rubens may have intended this drawing as an independent work of art, rather than a study. Although its composition is simple, this humble genre scene displays Rubens's characteristic lively technique.'

'Using a single dim source of light, he created strong contrasts of brightness and shadow on the man's skin, varying these along with the different expressions. He aptly captured Rubens's great achievement--the three-dimensional quality of his modeling and the pulsating vitality he bestowed on painted human flesh.'

'In a colour scheme typical for Rubens, the white habit shines like mother-of-pearl against a lacquer-red background where the shadow cast by the crozier gives depth.'

'The painting is the 'modello' for an enormous canvas (414 x 347 cm) that Rubens painted for the St Livinus Church in Ghent.'

'This work reveals the close connections that existed between designers and craftsmen and Rubens's reputation as a source of inspiration for other artists.'

'Rubens used oil sketches to explore his ideas about design and composition, and also as templates from which his assistants could generate full-scale canvases.'