Rubens and the Antique: New Sources from the Cesi and Farnese Collections of Antiquities

• In Event: Interpreting the Antique 1500–1675 III: The Antiquarians and the Antique

Abstract

Rubens’ fascination for classical antiquities, and in particular for marble sculpture in the round, is testified not only by the large number of sketches and drawings he made during his Italian period (1600–08), but also by the intensive use of ancient models in his paintings. The short treatise on the imitation of sculpture, De Imitatione Statuarum, which remained in manuscript during Rubens’ lifetime and was only published in 1708 by Roger de Piles in his Cours de peinture par principles, constitutes an important document to understand the principles at the very heart of the artist’s approach to the Antique. The paper will focus on the identification of new sources, never taken into account, which were absorbed by Rubens in some of his paintings: this is the case of the frieze on a puteal decorated with the Four Seasons, once in the Cesi collection and of a bacchic sarcophagus of the Farnese collection.

Author

• Eloisa Dodero, Musei Capitolini