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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1949.3
People
Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish (Siegen, Westphalia 1577 - 1640 Antwerp, Belgium)
Title
A Study for Christ for "The Elevation of the Cross"
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1610-11
Culture
Flemish
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297062

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black and white chalk and charcoal on light gray antique laid paper discolored to tan
Dimensions
40.3 x 29.8 cm (15 7/8 x 11 3/4 in.)
framed: 63.5 x 52.1 cm (25 x 20 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • watermark: Fragment of a hunting horn; unidentified
  • collector's mark: verso, lower left, blue ink, stamp: L. 1442 (Joseph Daniel Böhm)
  • stamp: former mat, in curatorial file, black ink, stamp, French: [circular stamp with text in the center and around the circumference] [circumference] BECKETTE PART[illegible] GARE ST LAZARE [center, illegible]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Possibly Jacob de Wit, Amsterdam, sold; [De Leth and Van Schorrenbergh, Amsterdam, 10-11 March 1755, possibly Book C, lots 21-27]. Simon Fokke, Amsterdam, sold; [Amsterdam, Van der Schley et al., 6 December 1784, kb E, lot 401.] Dirk Versteegh, Amsterdam, sold; [De Vries et al., Amsterdam, 3 November 1823, lot 35 or lot 37]; to Samuel Woodburn (if lot 35) or De Ruiter (if lot 37). Joseph Daniel Böhm, Vienna (Lugt 1442), sold; [Alexander Posonyi, Vienna, 4 December 1865, lot 1416], sold; to [Posonyi (bought in)]. Werner Weisbach, Berlin. [Goudstikker, Amsterdam], sold; to Meta and Paul J. Sachs, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1922, gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1949


Published Text

Catalogue
Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums
Authors
William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson
Publisher
Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016)

Catalogue entry no. 74 by William W. Robinson:

In June 1610, the priest and wardens of the Antwerp parish of Saint Walburga commissioned a monumental altarpiece from Peter Paul Rubens for the high altar of their church. The enormous ensemble—about thirty-five feet high and twenty-one feet wide—was finished in 1611.1 It originally consisted of a triptych with the Elevation of the Cross depicted on its central panel (Fig. 1), a tripartite predella, and, surmounting the triptych, a painted image of God the Father topped by a pelican in gilded wood and flanked by two angels painted on panel and cut out around the contours.2 Although the altarpiece was dismantled in 1733 and its subordinate components were dispersed, the triptych remained in Saint Walburga until 1794 and has been displayed since 1816 in Antwerp Cathedral (Church of Our Lady).3

The Harvard drawing is a study for the head, arms, and torso of Christ in the Elevation of the Cross panel.4 Apart from the addition of the beard, crown of thorns, and blood streaming from the wounds in Jesus’s hands, Rubens followed the study closely, albeit on the scale of the altarpiece, where the figure exceeds life size. The contours, modeling of the muscular arms and torso, disposition of light and shadow, and facial expression are all reproduced faithfully from the drawing. His meticulous preparation extended even to the tip of Christ’s proper left thumb, which he drew separately in the upper right corner of the sheet because he ran out of space for the whole hand. In addition to the Harvard work, drawings in black and white chalk for three of the executioners in the Elevation of the Cross and a sheet with two variants for the hands of the Virgin in the left inside wing of the triptych have also come down to us.5

Rubens executed these detailed chalk studies from studio models posed as the related figures would appear in the finished work.6 The drawings postdate the oil modello that records an early design for the Elevation of the Cross (Fig. 2).7 Between the oil sketch and the final painting, Rubens extensively reworked the staging of the Elevation scene, and the figure studies reflect the revisions he made to the composition.8 Among other changes, he reinvented the pose of the crucified Christ. In the oil sketch, he positioned the cross with Jesus’s strongly foreshortened body lying flat upon it, while in the altarpiece he rotated the cross so that Christ is seen more frontally and his figure given the powerful torsion prepared in the Harvard study. The chalk drawings of the three executioners also correspond more precisely to the figures in the triptych than to their counterparts in the oil sketch.9

The figure studies for The Elevation of the Cross must date from 1610 or early in 1611. A letter written in Antwerp in March 1611 implies that the painting was then far enough along to be “held in high esteem,” and a large payment to the artist in August of that year attests that work was complete by then.10 The sheet on which Rubens drew the figure of Christ bears a watermark that is nearly identical to those in his Studies for Apostles (1936.123) and in two figure studies in Rotterdam. The papers would likely have been manufactured by the same mill at the same date. Now discolored to a warm tan, the paper with the study for Christ was originally the cool gray of the Studies for Apostles.11

Notes

1 John Rupert Martin (Rubens: The Antwerp Altarpieces, New York, 1969, pp. 39–40) regarded a payment made to Rubens in August 1611 as evidence that the work was substantially complete by then.

2 Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross (center panel of the triptych, Fig. 1). Oil on panel. 460 × 340 cm (center panel). Antwerp Cathedral (Church of Our Lady); J. Richard Judson, Rubens: The Passion of Christ (Turnhout, Belgium, 2000), cat. 20, pp. 88–95. For the commission and original components of the altarpiece, see Martin, pp. 38–43 and 55, and Judson, cats. 20–28, pp. 88–122.

3 Judson, p. 88.

4 The drawing was already identified as a study for the painting in the 1784 sale of the collection of Simon Fokke (see “Provenance”). The following lot in the Fokke sale was a study, now in a Dutch private collection, for one of the executioners in the Elevation of the Cross; Anne-Marie Logan in Michiel C. Plomp and Anne‑Marie Logan, Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 2005), cat. 38, p. 149.

5 Ibid., pp. 24–25, repr. fig. 15, and cats. 38–40, pp. 149–55, repr. pp. 152–54. Other figure studies by Rubens have been associated erroneously with the Elevation of the Cross for Saint Walburga (Judson, cats. 20e–20g, pp. 101–3), and Logan does not cite them as studies for that painting. Additionally, Logan (p. 155, n. 4) rightly rejects the attribution to Rubens of another drawing in the Harvard Art Museums (1943.524) that has been regarded in the literature as an earlier—or alternate—study by the master for the figure of Christ on the cross; Judson, cat. 20b, pp. 98–99. However, her suggestion that 1943.524 is by the eighteenth-century Dutch artist Jacob de Wit is highly unlikely. In my view, it is a copy after 1949.3 from Rubens’s workshop.

6 See Anne-Marie Logan in Logan and Plomp, pp. 9–11 and 23–24, on Rubens’s practice of drawing from models in preparation for paintings.

7 Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross (modello) (Fig. 2). Oil on panel. 67 × 103 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre, MNR 411; Julius S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens (Princeton, New Jersey, 1980), vol. 1, cat. 349, pp. 479–81; Judson, cat. 20a, pp. 95–98.

8 Although Rubens was presumably granted the commission in June 1610 on the basis of the oil modello, the composition of its central panel belongs to an earlier stage of the design than the wings. See Held (vol. 1, pp. 480–81), Cynthia M. Lawrence (“Before the Raising of the Cross: The Origins of Rubens’s Earliest Antwerp Altarpieces,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 2, June 1999: 267–96, pp. 281–90), and Judson (under cat. 20a, pp. 96–98) on the changes to the program and format of the altar that necessitated the artist’s revisions to the design of the central panel.

9 Anne-Marie Logan in Logan and Plomp, under cats. 37–40, pp. 150–54; Judson, cats. 20c–20d, pp. 99–101, and cats. 20–20k, pp. 103–5.

10 The letter, written by the Antwerp merchant Jan Le Grand, includes the painting in a list of pictures highly regarded in the city, which implies that it must then have been accessible and finished enough that its quality was evident; Frans Baudouin in John Rupert Martin, ed., Rubens before 1620 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1972), pp. 47 and 57–59. Respecting the payment, see note 1.

11 My thanks to Penley Knipe for imaging both watermarks and interpreting the similarities between them, as well as for discussing the paper colors of the two drawings. For the Rotterdam drawings, see A. W. F. M. Meij in A. W. F. M. Meij, Maartje de Haan, et al., Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and Their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Pittsburgh: Frick Art Museum, Frick Art & Historical Center; Ocala, Florida: Appleton Museum of Art; Nashville, TN: Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2001), cats. 11 and 12, pp. 86–94. Thanks, too, to Albert J. Elen, senior curator of drawings and prints at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, for providing images and precise descriptions of the watermarks in the two Rotterdam drawings.

Figures

Fig. 1 Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross

Fig. 2 Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Meta and Paul J. Sachs
Accession Year
1949
Object Number
1949.3
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • The Vasari Society for the Reproduction of Drawings by Old Masters, Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (Oxford, England, 1905 - 1935), first series, part VIII, n.p., no. 22, repr. pl. 22
  • Gustav Glück, "Rubens' Kreuzaufrichtungsaltar", Belgische Kunstdenkmäler, Paul Clemen (Munich, 1923), vol. 2, pp. 161-84, p. 172
  • Gustav Glück and Franz Martin Haberditzl, Die Handzeichnungen von Peter Paul Rubens, Julius Bard (Berlin, Germany, 1928), cat. no. 61, p. 35, repr. pl. 61
  • Robert Allerton Parker, "Notes on Drawings at the Fogg Museum", The International Studio (January 1930), vol. 95, no. 392, pp. 36-40, p. 38, repr. p. 39
  • Gustav Glück, "Rubens' Kreuzaufrichtungsaltar", Rubens, Van Dyck, und ihr Kreis, Verlag A. Schroll & Co., g.m.b.h. (Vienna, Italy, 1933), pp. 56-81, 381-383, pp. 70 and 381 (n. e)
  • Master Drawings, Selected from the Museums and Private Collections of America, exh. cat., Buffalo Fine Arts Academy/Albright Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY, 1935), cat. no. 40, n.p., repr.
  • An Exhibition of Sixty Paintings and Some Drawings by Peter Paul Rubens, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI, 1936), cat. no. Drawings 5, n.p.
  • Fogg Art Museum Handbook, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 150, repr.
  • Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate International Exposition, Art: Official Catalogue, exh. cat., The Recording Printing and Publishing Company, H.S. Crocker Co., Inc., and Schwabacher-Frey Co. (San Francisco, 1940), cat. no. 490, p. 98
  • Agnes Mongan and Paul J. Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, 1940), vol. 1, cat. no. 483, pp. 250-251, repr. vol. 2, fig. 249
  • Annemarie Henle, Master Drawings: An Exhibition of Drawings from American Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat., Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate International Exposition (San Francisco, 1940), cat. no. 91, p. 23, repr. p. 56, fig. 91
  • A Special Exhibition of Drawings from the Fogg Museum of Art, exh. cat., Speed Memorial Museum (Louisville, KY, 1947), cat. no. 17
  • Hans Tietze, European Master Drawings in the United States, J. J. Augustin, Inc. (New York, 1947), cat. no. 60, pp. 120-21, repr.
  • Jan-Albert Goris and Julius S. Held, Rubens in America, Pantheon Books (New York and Antwerp, 1947), cat. no. 104, p. 42, repr. pl. 109
  • Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Art of Europe during the XVIth - XVIIth Centuries, exh. cat., Worcester Art Museum (1948), cat. no. 42, p. 35
  • Paul J. Sachs, The Pocket Book of Great Drawings, Pocket Books, Inc. (New York, 1951), pp. ix and 66-67, repr. pl. 42
  • Werner R. Deusch, Die Aktzeichnung in der Europäischen Kunst, Brüder Auer Verlag (Bonn, 1952), cat. no. 46, p. 23, repr. p. 86, fig. 46
  • An Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Drawings and Watercolors, checklist, Unpublished (1954), cat. no. 14, p. 3
  • Jakob Rosenberg, "Review: Rubens' Oil Sketches and Drawings in the Fogg Museum", Art Quarterly (Summer 1956), vol. 19, pp. 138-43, p. 142
  • Agnes Mongan, Drawings & Oil Sketches: Rubens from American Collections, exh. cat., President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA, 1956), cat. no. 8, pp. 14-15, repr. pl. III
  • Dr. Ludwig Burchard and Roger A. d'Hulst, Tekeningen van P.P. Rubens, exh. cat., Uitgeverij Ontwikkeling (Antwerp, 1956), cat. no. 34, pp. 47-48, repr. pl. XI
  • Arthur Millier, The drawings of Rubens, Borden Publishing Company (Los Angeles, 1957), repr. p. 42
  • Agnes Mongan, "The Fogg Art Museum's Collection of Drawings", Harvard Library Bulletin, Harvard University (Cambridge, 1958), vol. 3, no. 2, March, pp. 5-9, p. 200
  • Günter Aust, “Entwurf und Ausführung bei Rubens", Walraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, M. DuMont Schauberg (Cologne, 1958), vol. 20, pp. 163-212, p. 168 (n. 11)
  • Bernard Myers, ed., Encyclopedia of World Art, McGraw-Hill Book Company (New York, 1959-1987), vol. 16 (Supplement), p. 203, fig. 227
  • Julius S. Held, Rubens Selected Drawings, Phaidon Press (London, 1959), vol. 1, under cat. no. 76, p. 129
  • Masterpieces: A Memorial Exhibition for Adele R. Levy, exh. cat., Wildenstein Gallery, New York (New York, 1961), cat no. 67, repr.
  • Otto Benesch, Jan Gerrit van Gelder, and Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Great Drawings of All Time [vol. 2: German, Flemish and Dutch], ed. Ira Moskowitz, Shorewood Publishers Inc. (New York, 1962), cat. no. 521, repr.
  • Dr. Ludwig Burchard and Roger A. d'Hulst, Rubens Drawings, Arcade Press (Brussels, 1963), vol. 1, cat. no. 55, pp. 94-96, repr. vol. 2, fig. 55
  • Agnes Mongan, Memorial Exhibition: Works of Art from the Collection of Paul J. Sachs [1878-1965]: given and bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, exh. cat., Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, 1965), cat. no. 19, n.p., repr., and p. 207
  • Justus Müller Hofstede, "Review: L. Burchard and R.-A. d'Hulst: Rubens Drawings", Master Drawings (1966), vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 435-454, pp. 435 and 445
  • John Rupert Martin, Rubens: The Antwerp Altarpieces, W. W. Norton & Company (New York, 1969), p. 42, repr. fig. 14
  • John Rupert Martin, "Rubens's Jupiter and Cupid: An Exhibition at Princeton", Apollo (October 1971), vol. 94, no. 116, pp. 277-79, p. 278
  • John Rupert Martin, ed., Rubens before 1620, exh. cat., Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ, 1972), cat. no. 8, pp. 139 and 160-61, repr.
  • Mrs. Colles Baxter Larkin, "Rubens: A Variety of Interests" (unpublished manuscript, Fogg Art Museum, 1974). Typewritten brochure that accompanied the exhibition of the same title at the Fogg Art Museum, 23 May - 30 June 1974., no. 15, n.p.
  • Yuri Kuznetsov, Risunki Rubensa, Iskusstvo (Muscow, 1974), pp. 11 and 14, repr. pl. 28
  • Roxane Landers Althouse, ed., Rubenism, exh. cat., Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art (Providence, 1975), cat. no. 15, pp. 56-57, repr.
  • Curtis Carter, "Art and Religion: A Transreligious Approach", Arts in Society (Spring/Summer 1976), vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 154-78, repr. p. 162
  • Marianne Bernhard, ed., Rubens Handzeichnungen, Südwest Verlag GmbH & Co. (Munich, 1977), p. 204, repr.
  • Konrad Oberhuber, European Master Drawings of Six Centuries from the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo, 1979), cat. no. 43, n.p., repr. pl. 43
  • Julius S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ, 1980), vol. 1, under cat. no. 349, p. 480
  • Hans Kauffmann, "Formen der Begegnung in der Bildkunst von Rubens", Peter Paul Rubens: Werk und Nachraum, Wilhelm Fink (Augsburg, 1981), pp. 69-88, pp. 75 and 87 (n. 14)
  • Terisio Pignatti and Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel, Il disegno: da Altamira a Picasso, A. Mondadori (Milan, 1981), p. 213, repr. p. 212
  • Nathan Goldstein, A Guide to 100 American and European Drawings: A Portfolio, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982), repr. pl. 96
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), cat. no. 269, p. 231, repr.
  • Julius S. Held, Rubens Selected Drawings, Moyer Bell Limited (Mt. Kisco, NY, 1986), under cat. no. 55, p. 91
  • Catherine Whistler and Jeremy Wood, ed., Rubens in Oxford: an Exhibition of Drawings from Christ Church and the Ashmolean Museum, exh. cat., P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd. (London, 1988), under cat. no. 3, p. 26
  • Charles Scribner, III, Peter Paul Rubens, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, 1989), p. 19, repr. fig. 26
  • Anne-Marie Logan, Flemish Drawings in the Age of Rubens: Selected Works from American Collections, exh. cat., University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA and London, England, 1993), cat. no. 42, pp. 30, 41, 184-5, repr. pl. 42
  • Elizabeth M. Kornhauser, American Paintings before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1996), vol. 2, under cat no. 323, p. 546 (n. 6)
  • Ulrich Heinen, Rubens zwischen Predigt und Kunst. Der Hochaltar für die Walburgenkirche in Antwerpen, Verlag Und Datenbank Für Geisteswissenschaften (Weimar, 1996), pp. 133, 234 (n. 14), and 326 (n. 323, n. 326, n. 331, n. 332, and n. 333)
  • Kristin Lohse Belkin, Rubens, Phaidon (London, England, 1998), p. 128, repr. p. 130, fig. 85
  • J. R. Judson, Rubens The Passion of Christ, Harvey Miller/Brepols Publishers (Turnhout, Belgium, 2000), cat. no. 20c, pp. 99-100, repr. fig. 66 and under cat. no. 20b, p. 99
  • Will South, Color, Myth, and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, N.C., 2001), p. 75, repr. p. 77, fig. 64
  • Nathan Goldstein, Figure Drawing: The Structure, Anatomy, and Expressive Design of Human Form, Pearson Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2004), repr. as fig. 4.24 on p. 135
  • Nathan Goldstein, Figure Drawing: The Structure, Anatomy, and Expressive Design of the Human Form [6th Edition], Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004), p. 135, repr. fig. 4.24
  • Klaus Albrecht Schröder, ed., Peter Paul Rubens, exh. cat., Albertina (Vienna, 2004), cat. no. 28, pp. 22, 33, 61, 94, 106, 111, 210, and 214, repr. p. 61, fig. 39 and p. 211, Kat. 28
  • Anne-Marie Logan and Michiel C. Plomp, Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art / Yale University Press (New York/New Haven and London, 2004), cat. no. 37, pp. 10, 25, 51, 55, 58 (n. 93), 149-151, and 155 (n. 4), repr. p. 151, and frontispiece (detail)
  • Gregory Rubinstein, "[Review] Peter Paul Rubens. The Drawings", HNA Review of Books (http://www.hnanews.org/archive/2005/11/logan.html, November, 2005)
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 94, repr.
  • Stijn Alsteens, [Review] William W. Robinson, with Susan Anderson, "Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums" (Winter 2015), p. 532
  • Colleen Walsh, Drawing Power: Harvard Art Museums exhibit a showcase for masterworks in progress, Harvard Gazette ([online], May 19, 2016), http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/05/drawing-power/, accessed May 23, 2016
  • William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson, Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016), p. 15, 23, 256; cat. no. 74, pp. 250-252, repr. p. 251; watermark p. 380
  • Franklin Einspruch, Fuse Visual Art Review: A Pair of Drawing Shows at the Harvard Art Museums, The Arts Fuse ([e-journal], June 9, 2016), http://artsfuse.org/146319/fuse-visual-arts-review-a-pair-of-drawing-shows-at-the-harvard-art-museums/, accessed June 9, 2016
  • Old Master Drawings, auct. cat., Sotheby's, New York (New York, January 30, 2019), pp. 39, 41, under lot 15
  • Anne-Marie Logan and Kristin Lohse Belkin, The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens: A Critical Catalogue, Brepols (Turnhout, Belgium, 2021), vol. 2, cat. no. 243, pp. 94, 97, 99, 100, fig. 343
  • William A. Berry, Drawing the Human Form: Methods, Sources, Concepts, third edition, 2024, pp. 346-347, repr. as fig. 8-15

Exhibition History

  • Master Drawings, Selected from the Museums and Private Collections of America, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, 01/01/1935 - 01/31/1935
  • An exhibition of sixty paintings and some drawings by Peter Paul Rubens, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 02/13/1936 - 03/15/1936
  • Master Drawings: An Exhibition of Drawings from American Museums and Private Collections, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 01/01/1940 - 12/31/1940
  • Art: Official Catalogue, Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City, 01/01/1940 - 12/31/1940
  • A Special Exhibition of Drawings from the Fogg Museum of Art, Speed Memorial Museum, Louisville, KY, 03/02/1947 - 03/30/1947
  • Drawings from the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University (Collected by Paul J. Sachs), Century Club, New York, 05/12/1947 - 09/25/1947
  • Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Art of Europe during the XVIth-XVIIth Centuries, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, 01/01/1948 - 12/31/1948
  • An Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Drawings and Watercolors, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/01/1954 - 04/30/1954
  • Drawings & Oil Sketches by P. P. Rubens from American Collections, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 01/14/1956 - 02/29/1956; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 03/20/1956 - 04/28/1956
  • Tekeningen van P.P. Rubens, Rubenshuis, 06/16/1956 - 09/02/1956
  • Masterpieces: A Memorial Exhibition for Adele R. Levy, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 04/06/1961 - 05/07/1961
  • Memorial Exhibition: Works of Art from the Collection of Paul J. Sachs [1878-1965] Given and Bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 11/15/1965 - 01/15/1966; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 12/19/1966 - 02/26/1967
  • Rubens before 1620, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, 01/01/1972 - 12/31/1972
  • Rubens: A Variety of Interests, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/23/1974 - 06/30/1974
  • Rubenism, David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, 01/30/1975 - 02/23/1975
  • European Master Drawing of Six Centuries from the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 11/03/1979 - 12/16/1979
  • Flemish Drawings in the Age of Rubens, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, 10/15/1993 - 11/28/1993; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 01/04/1994 - 02/20/1994
  • Calming the Tempest with Peter Paul Rubens, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 12/22/2001 - 03/17/2002
  • Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings, Albertina, Vienna, 09/14/2004 - 12/05/2004; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 01/15/2005 - 04/03/2005
  • Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/21/2016 - 08/14/2016

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project
  • Dutch, Flemish, & Netherlandish Drawings

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu