(Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
Meleager presenting the head of the Calydonian Boar to Atalanta,
oil on panel, 76 x 57.5 cm, framed

Provenance: 
Collection Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild (1827–1905), Paris (before 1906);
Collection Rothschild, Château de Ferrières;
confiscated by ERR Paris 5 November 1940;
transferred to the collection Hermann Göring;
restituted to the Rothschild family in 1946;
thence by descent to the previous owner;
Private European collection;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna 13 April 2011, lot 425;
Private European collection

Literature:
M. Rooses, L’Oeuvre de Peter Paul Rubens, vol. III, 1886, no. 642 (as P. P. Rubens);
L’Art, Paris 1905, p. 26;
P. Kaemmerer, Tschudis Eingriffe in zwei Bilder des Rubens – Eine Kritik, Munich 1910 (as P. P. Rubens);
G. Glück, Die angebliche Verstümmelung eines Rubens’schen Bildes und die Aufgaben der Galeriebeamten, in: Ztschr. für Bildende Kunst, 1910, Nr. XXI, pp. 289–94, in: G. Glück, Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. by L. Burchard and R. Eigenberger, Vienna 1933, pp. 172–74 and p. 396;
J. Denucé, Na Peter Paul Rubens, Documenten uit den Kunsthandel te Antwerpen in de XVII eeuw van Matthijs Musson, Antwerp 1949;
Catalogue, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1977, under no. 1181;
H. Falkner von Sonnenburg, F. Preußer, Peter Paul Rubens, Meleager und Atalante, in: Maltechnik-Restauro 1, Munich 1979 (“… the assumption seems justified that there also existed a preliminary design in the form of an oil sketch for ‘Meleager and Atalanta’”);
J. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, vol. II, Princeton 1980, under cat. no. 252 (Here Held confused the present painting with an unidentified copy on canvas of strongly deviating dimensions, and J. Müller-Hofstede assumes that it remained unknown to Held);
K. Renger, C. Denk, Flämische Malerei des Barocks in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich 2000, p. 365 

This study, which comes from the famous collection of the banker Alphonse de Rothschild, impressively illustrates how Rubens and his workshop went about the conception and execution of a project. It is a version of Meleager and Atalanta in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 335, oil on canvas,199.9 x 151.3 cm, formerly Kurfürstliche Galerie Schloss Schleißheim). Atalanta, a famous huntress of Greek mythology, and Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Caledonia, took part in the hunt of the Calydonian Boar, which had been sent by Artemis as a punishment because the king had failed to honour her with a sacrifice. Atalanta and Meleager fell in love. Rubens shows Meleager presenting the head of the killed boar to his beloved Atalanta. Different from another version of the theme made about twenty years earlier, Cupid was introduced here as a mediator between Meleager’s courtship and Atalanta’s timid withdrawal. Over time, the monumental Munich painting underwent several profound changes. An uninspired addition in the form of an approximately one-metre-wide strip was attached on the right-hand side as early as the seventeenth century, and a further narrow strip was added on the left in the late eighteenth century. In 1910, both elements were identified as additions by the museum’s then-director Hugo v. Tschudi, and folded back. On the occasion of their final removal, conservator Hubert v. Sonnenburg conducted a thorough examination of the Munich painting, the findings of which proved crucial for the identification of the present painting. It turned out that the first additions were made at a very early stage, which is confirmed by a copy offered for sale around 1645 (see J. Denucé, op. cit., p. 41, document 58, no. 1). Sonnenburg also discovered several pentimenti suggesting that Rubens himself fundamentally modified the composition while the painting was still in his workshop. Sonnenburg thus concluded that the painting must have been in Rubens’s workshop for a longer period of time and that Rubens “reworked the painting after an unidentified amount of time had elapsed” (H. v. Sonnenburg, p. 103). 

The present painting seems to be a sketch made in the workshop while these modifications were carried out. This is suggested by its slight deviations from the Munich painting; in fact, the sketch shows numerous elements typical of Rubens’s hand. It is astounding that no sketches seem to have survived for the overall composition. The present painting could be such a work. Particularly given the fact that several students, including Frans Snijders, who painted the dog in the Munich painting, are known to have collaborated in the picture, thus suggesting that the master prepared the project carefully, giving quite some thought to its composition. The Munich version is generally dated to 1635. As was proven by Sonnenburg, the painting had been present in the workshop over an extensive period of time, probably for several years. In the course of a profound conservational examination of the painting, a date appearing on it that has time and again been referred to in literature turned out to be a later addition. By 1645 several copies of the extended composition that neither corresponded to the present painting nor to the Munich version after it had been freed from its additions were circulating on the market, thus suggesting that the present painting must have been executed before that date. Earlier literature assumed that the Rothschild panel was a sketch, i.e. a preliminary study for the Munich painting. 

What is interesting in this context are the stylistic similarities and physiognomic resemblances to Jan Myssen’s engraving based on Rubens’s composition. The print is much closer to the present painting than to the Munich version so that the smaller version of the Munich painting might have served as the model for the reproduction. This procedure would have been typical of Rubens’s workshop and is also suggested in Justus Müller-Hofstede’s certificate. In any case, the latter identifies the present painting as an important preliminary stage of the Munich version, agreeing with the canon of Rubens scholars who saw the present painting as a study from an early date. Using studies for both their usual purpose and reproduction was a common practice in Rubens’s workshop. The French collector Pierre-Jean Mariette reports that Rubens was personally involved in the reproductions of the paintings produced in his workshop (K. Renger, Rubens dedit dedicavitque, Rubens’ Beschäftigung mit der Reproduktionsgraphik, I, Der Kupferstich, in: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 16, 1974, pp. 123/24). It even happened that he reworked finished paintings in the context of new ideas that occurred to him during the process of reproduction (ibid., p. 174). The present painting therefore essentially contributes to the understanding of the great Flemish master’s working method.

Provenance:
before 1906, Collection Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild (1827–1905), Paris;
Rothschild family collection, Château de Ferrières;
by descent to the previous owner;
Private European collection;
sale, Dorotheum, 13 April 2011, lot 425;
Private European collection

Literature:
M. Rooses, L’Oeuvre de Peter Paul Rubens, vol. III, 1886, no. 642 (as P. P. Rubens);
L’Art, Paris 1905, p. 26;
P. Kaemmerer, Tschudis Eingriffe in zwei Bilder des Rubens – Eine Kritik, Munich 1910 (as P. P. Rubens);
G. Glück, Die angebliche Verstümmelung eines Rubens’schen Bildes und die Aufgaben der Galeriebeamten, in: Ztschr. für Bildende Kunst, 1910, Nr. XXI, pp. 289–94, in: G. Glück, Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. by L. Burchard and R. Eigenberger, Vienna 1933, pp. 172–74 and p. 396;
J. Denucé, Na Peter Paul Rubens, Documenten uit den Kunsthandel te Antwerpen in de XVII eeuw van Matthijs Musson, Antwerp 1949;
Catalogue, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1977, under no. 1181;
H. Falkner von Sonnenburg, F. Preußer, Peter Paul Rubens, Meleager und Atalante, in: Maltechnik-Restauro 1, Munich 1979 (“… the assumption seems justified that there also existed a preliminary design in the form of an oil sketch for ‘Meleager and Atalanta’”);
J. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, vol. II, Princeton 1980, under cat. no. 252 (Here Held confused the present painting with an unidentified copy on canvas of strongly deviating dimensions, and J. Müller-Hofstede assumes that it remained unknown to Held);
K. Renger, C. Denk, Flämische Malerei des Barocks in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich 2000, p. 365

This study, which comes from the famous collection of the banker Alphonse de Rothschild, impressively illustrates how Rubens and his workshop went about the conception and execution of a project. It is a version of Meleager and Atalanta in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 335, oil on canvas,199.9 x 151.3 cm, formerly Kurfürstliche Galerie Schloss Schleißheim). Atalanta, a famous huntress of Greek mythology, and Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Caledonia, took part in the hunt of the Calydonian Boar, which had been sent by Artemis as a punishment because the king had failed to honour her with a sacrifice. Atalanta and Meleager fell in love. Rubens shows Meleager presenting the head of the killed boar to his beloved Atalanta. Different from another version of the theme made about twenty years earlier, Cupid was introduced here as a mediator between Meleager’s courtship and Atalanta’s timid withdrawal. Over time, the monumental Munich painting underwent several profound changes. An uninspired addition in the form of an approximately one-metre-wide strip was attached on the right-hand side as early as the seventeenth century, and a further narrow strip was added on the left in the late eighteenth century. In 1910, both elements were identified as additions by the museum’s then-director Hugo v. Tschudi, and folded back. On the occasion of their final removal, conservator Hubert v. Sonnenburg conducted a thorough examination of the Munich painting, the findings of which proved crucial for the identification of the present painting. It turned out that the first additions were made at a very early stage, which is confirmed by a copy offered for sale around 1645 (see J. Denucé, op. cit., p. 41, document 58, no. 1). Sonnenburg also discovered several pentimenti suggesting that Rubens himself fundamentally modified the composition while the painting was still in his workshop. Sonnenburg thus concluded that the painting must have been in Rubens’s workshop for a longer period of time and that Rubens “reworked the painting after an unidentified amount of time had elapsed” (H. v. Sonnenburg, p. 103).

The present painting seems to be a sketch made in the workshop while these modifications were carried out. This is suggested by its slight deviations from the Munich painting; in fact, the sketch shows numerous elements typical of Rubens’s hand. It is astounding that no sketches seem to have survived for the overall composition. The present painting could be such a work. Particularly given the fact that several students, including Frans Snijders, who painted the dog in the Munich painting, are known to have collaborated in the picture, thus suggesting that the master prepared the project carefully, giving quite some thought to its composition. The Munich version is generally dated to 1635. As was proven by Sonnenburg, the painting had been present in the workshop over an extensive period of time, probably for several years. In the course of a profound conservational examination of the painting, a date appearing on it that has time and again been referred to in literature turned out to be a later addition. By 1645 several copies of the extended composition that neither corresponded to the present painting nor to the Munich version after it had been freed from its additions were circulating on the market, thus suggesting that the present painting must have been executed before that date. Earlier literature assumed that the Rothschild panel was a sketch, i.e. a preliminary study for the Munich painting.

What is interesting in this context are the stylistic similarities and physiognomic resemblances to Jan Myssen’s engraving based on Rubens’s composition. The print is much closer to the present painting than to the Munich version so that the smaller version of the Munich painting might have served as the model for the reproduction. This procedure would have been typical of Rubens’s workshop and is also suggested in Justus Müller-Hofstede’s certificate. In any case, the latter identifies the present painting as an important preliminary stage of the Munich version, agreeing with the canon of Rubens scholars who saw the present painting as a study from an early date. Using studies for both their usual purpose and reproduction was a common practice in Rubens’s workshop. The French collector Pierre-Jean Mariette reports that Rubens was personally involved in the reproductions of the paintings produced in his workshop (K. Renger, Rubens dedit dedicavitque, Rubens’ Beschäftigung mit der Reproduktionsgraphik, I, Der Kupferstich, in: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 16, 1974, pp. 123/24). It even happened that he reworked finished paintings in the context of new ideas that occurred to him during the process of reproduction (ibid., p. 174). The present painting therefore essentially contributes to the understanding of the great Flemish master’s working method.