Rubens
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PETER PAUL, a distinguished Flemish painter; born in Siegen, Westphalia, June 29, 1577. When he was 10 years old, his mother, then a widow, returned to her native place, Antwerp. He received an excellent education; and after studying in his own country, especially under Otto Van Veen, he went to Italy, where he improved himself by copying the works of the best masters, but chiefly Titian. While in Italy he was employed by the Duke of Mantua, not only as an artist, but on an embassy to Madrid. He returned to Antwerp erp in in 1608, and was soon after made court painter to the Archduke Albert, Spanish governor of the Low Countries. In 1620 he was employed by the Princess Mary de Medici to adorn the gallery of the Luxembourg with a series of paintings illustra- PETER PAUL RUBENS While thus engaged he became known to the Duke of Bu Buckingham, who purchased his museum. He was afterward employed by the Infanta Isabella and the King of Spain in some important negotiations which he executed with such credit as to be appointed secretary of the privy council. He acquired immense wealth, and was twice married, the second time, in 1631, to a lovely girl of 16. Rubens, beyond all comparison, was the most rapid in execution of all the great masters, and was incontestably the greatest perfector of the mechanical part of his art that ever existed. His works are very numerous, and very diversified in subject. There are nearly 100 in the Picture Gallery "The Descent from the at Munich. Cross," at Antwerp, is perhaps his masterpiece. He died in Antwerp, May 30, 1640. RUBIACEÆ, an order of plants founded by Jussieu in 1759; monopetalous plants, with opposite leaves, interpetiolar stipules; stamens inserted in the tube of the corolla, and alternating with its lobes; ovary inferior, compound.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biography Collier's gave in 1921 is still substantially the one modern scholars tell: Siegen birth in 1577, training under Otto van Veen, the Italian years, the Medici cycle for the Luxembourg, the diplomatic missions, and the marriage in 1630 to the teenaged Helena Fourment when he was in his fifties. What has moved is the question of what is actually by his hand. Since the 1960s the vast Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard catalogue has worked through the oeuvre picture by picture, sharpening the line between Rubens himself and the large Antwerp workshop that produced much of the output the old entry admired for its speed; his rediscovered Massacre of the Innocents, long credited to a follower, was reattributed and sold in 2002 for about £49.5 million, then a record for an Old Master. The Descent from the Cross remains in Antwerp Cathedral, the Medici canvases are in the Louvre, and his Antwerp house is now the Rubenshuis museum.
Written for this edition, 2026.