Peter Paul Rubens
1577-1640
Angel Blowing a Trumpet, Facing Left
ca. 1617-1620
sheet: 9 7/8 x 10 3/4 inches; design: 9 13/16 inches (249 mm), right margin; 10 11/16 inches (271 mm), top margin; 1 1/4 inches (32 mm), left margin; 1 1/4 inches (32 mm), lower margin
Black chalk, white chalk with smudging, pen and black-brown ink, on laid paper; squared in black chalk; adhered on decorative mount.
1957.1
Purchased as the gift of the Fellows with the special assistance of Walter C. Baker and Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stern.
Notes
Watermark: none.
This drawing is pendant to another in the Morgan's collection, inv. I, 233. Rubens made these splendidly elegant yet robust angels blowing on their trumpets as designs for relief sculptures above the main entrance of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, now the St. Charles Borromeo Church. He added white chalk for the highlights and worked these areas with a wet brush, as though sculpting the figures to life. The resulting three-dimensionality is especially perceptible in the left knee of the angel facing right, which gives the impression of bursting out of the arch and into our space. The two drawings were separated for centuries until 1957, when the Morgan, already the owner of the one facing right, acquired its pendant. -- Exhibition Label, from "Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens"
This drawing is pendant to another in the Morgan's collection, inv. I, 233. Rubens made these splendidly elegant yet robust angels blowing on their trumpets as designs for relief sculptures above the main entrance of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, now the St. Charles Borromeo Church. He added white chalk for the highlights and worked these areas with a wet brush, as though sculpting the figures to life. The resulting three-dimensionality is especially perceptible in the left knee of the angel facing right, which gives the impression of bursting out of the arch and into our space. The two drawings were separated for centuries until 1957, when the Morgan, already the owner of the one facing right, acquired its pendant. -- Exhibition Label, from "Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens"
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed on mount, at lower center, in Richardson's hand, in brown ink, "Rubens". On verso, Richardson's pressmarks on mount, in brown ink, "Fa43 / DD39 / T [or J]"; numbered on verso at left in pen and brown ink, "7".
Associated names
Richardson, Jonathan, 1665-1745, former owner.
Reitlinger, Henry Scipio, former owner.
Baker, Walter C., donor.
Stern, Carl, donor.
Stern, Anne Bigelow, donor.
Reitlinger, Henry Scipio, former owner.
Baker, Walter C., donor.
Stern, Carl, donor.
Stern, Anne Bigelow, donor.
Bibliography
Tuinen, Ilona van. Power and Grace : Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens. New York : Morgan Library & Museum, 2018, no. 5 (repr.)
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 145, no. 309, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 145, no. 309, repr.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
School
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