Page:Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, 1887, vol 4.djvu/122

 KUBENS with a letter of recommendation to the Cardinal Montalto. Having executed the Duke's commission, and painted a triptych for the Chapel of St. Helena in the Church of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, by order of the Archduke Albert, Eubens returned to Mantua early in 1603. In March he was sent to Spain as the Duke's messenger, with presents for the King and certain high dignitaries. The pictures which formed part of them, chiefly by an inferior artist, Pietro Fachotti, having been much dam- aged en route, were restored at Valladolid by Kubens, and as two were irreparably in- jured he painted his Democritus, and Hera- clitus, now in the Madrid Museum, to re- place them. He also painted an equestrian portrait of the Duque de Lerma and several portraits of beautiful Spanish women for the Duke of Mantua ; after which he re- turned to Mantua at the end of April, 1604, and painted an altarpiece for the Church of the Trinity. The wings were destroyed in 1797 during the French occupation, but the central piece, representing the Trinity, is preserved in the public library at Mantua. At the end of 1605 Kubens went to Rome to continue his studies. In July, 1607, he met the Duke at Genoa, and in the course of six or seven weeks made 139 sketches of palaces, afterwards published at Antwerp (1613). At this time, perhaps, he modelled the bust of Spiuola, still preserved in the family palace, and received a commission from the Marchese Pallavicini for his pict- ure of Ignatius Loyola, which he sent from Antwerp in 1620. Returning to Rome in 1607, Rubens finished his picture of Pope Gregory the Great with Saints (sent to Gre- noble by Napoleon in 1811), and in the autumn of 1608, having received news of the dangerous illness of his mother, he re- turned to Antwerp, where he arrived in November, after her death. Depressed, and homesick for Italy, he would soon have gone back to Rome had not the Archduke Albert, moved by the commendations of Otto van Veen, Rubens's old master, treat- ed him with much consideration at Brus- sels, and commissioned him to paint his own portrait, that of the Infanta Isabella, a Holy Family for the oratory of his palace, and a large altarpiece for the church at Candenburg, the triptych of S. Ildefonso, now in the Museum at Vienna. In 1609 the Archduke made Rubens his court paint- er, gave him a gold chain and medal, and granted him numerous privileges. Re- nouncing his intention to return to Italy, Rubens obtained permission to fix his resi- dence at Antwerp, where, on October 13, 1609, he married Isabella Brandt. Com- missions now crowded upon him to such an extent that at the beginning of 1611 he had refused more than one hundred. Among the works of this time are the De- livery of the Keys, Church of St. Gudule, Brussels ; The Erection of the Cross, Notre Dame, Antwerp ; and an Adoration of the Magi, Antwerp Museum ; the St. Therese, the St. Anne, and the Dead Christ in the same collection. Enriched by inheritance, by his wife's dowry, and by his own labours, Rubens in 1611 built himself a beautiful house at Antwerp with a round gallery lighted from above, which he decorated with his copies, original works, and ac- quired objects of art. In September of the same year he agreed to paint for the guild of the Harquebusiers the great altarpiece with wings, which was finished in 1612, and since 1614 has decorated their altar in the Antwerp Cathedral. The different paintings upon it are the famous Descent from the Cross, the Visitation, the Presen- tation, and the St. Christopher and a Her- mit. Having numerous pupils, and con- stant demands for original works, Rubens spent eleven years at Antwerp, and then went to Paris in February, 1622, at the call of Maria de' Medici, to decorate the Lux- embourg Palace with twenty-one great pict- ] ures, now in the Louvre, representing the history of her life up to the period of her reconciliation with her son, Louis XTTT. In 1622-23 he returned to Paris to consult