Nude Youth in the Pose of the Spinario

1610/16

Peter Paul Rubens
Flemish, 1577–1640

Italy, specifically ancient Roman sculpture, profoundly influenced Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. The artist himself wrote that “in order to attain the highest perfection in painting, it is necessary to understand the antiques … to be so thoroughly possessed of this knowledge that it may diffuse itself everywhere.”

This drawing of a live studio model derives from the artist’s firsthand acquaintance with the Hellenistic bronze Spinario (also called Boy with Thorn, 1st century BCE), which was one of the most celebrated and copied sculptures in Rome. Absorbing antiquity without outright copying it, Rubens fully transformed his image from cold stone to vibrant flesh.

On View: Prints and Drawings, Gallery 126

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Title: Nude Youth in the Pose of the Spinario
Origin: Flanders
Date: Made 1610–1616
Medium: Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on tan laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, lower right, in pen and black ink: Peter Paul Rubens f[ecit] 1577 + 1640"; lower right, in graphite: "Rubens" (partially erased)
Dimensions: 280 x 188 mm
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 2019.863

Michael Jaffé, Rubens and Italy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), pp. 73, 80, 115 n. 35, 116 n. 16; pl. 273.
Anne-Marie Logan, “Rubens Exhibitions, 1977,” Master Drawings 15, no. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 412, under no. 14.
Julius S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings (Oxford, 1986), p. 82, no. 39; p. 172, pl. 23.
Marjon van der Muelen, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol 23, Copies after the Antique (H. Miller, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 80.
Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Jean-René Gaborit, Alain Pasquier, eds., D’après l’antique, exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, 2000–01 (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), p. 419, under no. 222, pl. 222b.
 William O’Reilly, “Rubens: A Recently Rediscovered Drawing Inspired by the Antique,” Christie’s Magazine (June, July, August, 2003), pp. 68–69 (ill.).
Adriano Aymonino and Anne Varick Lauder, Drawn from the the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, exh. cat. (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2015), under no. 9 (mistakenly as London, private collection).

New York and London, Artemis/C. G. Boerner, Old Master Drawings and Paintings, 2004, cat. 5.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art, Sept. 25, 2010–Jan. 2, 2011, cat. 32 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 100, 102 (ill.), 312-13, cat. 32, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection”, January 25 - May 10, 2020.

Unidentified collector [partially erased stamp, recto, lower left]. Private collection, Sweden, by 1977 [Jaffé 1977 and Cuzin 2000 as private collection, London]; sold, Christie’s, London, July 8, 2003, lot 96, to Richard and Mary Gray, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

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