|
 |
Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640)
Flemish painter, born in Siegen, Westphalia, the son of the Antwerp lawyer Jan Rubens. Rubens received a classical education; his artistic training was entrusted to Tobias Verhaecht, Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen; he became a master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1598. Between 1600 and 1608 he stayed in Italy, travelling in the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantuaon on a diplomatic mission to Spain in 1603/04. He became aquainted with the works of Classical antiquity, compositions of the great Renaissance masters and with those of his contemporaries. In 1608 he returned to Antwerp and in 1609 married Isabella Brant. In the same year he was appointed court painter to the governor (Stadholder), Archduke Albrecht, and his wife, the Infanta Isabella. In 1610 he purchased a piece of land on which he built a large house with studios. In the following decade he received a number of major commissions, including the cycle of paintings for the gallery of the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris (1622-25), commissioned by the widowed queen mother of France. In 1626 Isabella Brant died. In 1628 Rubens again visited Spain on a diplomatic mission to the court of Philip IV. In 1629-30 he was at the court of Charles I in England. Rubens married the 16-year-old Hélène Fourment in 1630. Amongst the major works he executed in the course of the following years were cartoons for several series of tapestries, the ceiling frescoes in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London (1630-34), for Charles I, and his collaboration (1634-35) on the festive decorations for the entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand into Antwerp (1634-35). In 1635 Rubens acquired ¿Het Steen¿ in Elewijt, Vilvoorde, a country seat that appears in several of his magnificent later landscapes. His last important commission consisted of the designs for paintings for Philip IV's hunting lodge "Torre de la Parada" near Madrid. Rubens died in Antwerp 1640 |
|
|
|
