St. Albert of Louvain

1620

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

Peter Paul Rubens executed this study and 38 more as he prepared to decorate the ceiling of the Jesuit church in Antwerp. He presented such highly finished sketches to his patrons as proposals for major projects. This work shows a dramatically foreshortened saint gliding majestically on a cloud. The bold perspective would have furthered the illusion that the painting was a window in the ceiling of the church, offering a view to the open sky above. The man depicted here is the 12th-century martyr Albert of Louvain, patron saint of Archduke Albert, governor of the Spanish Netherlands.

Status: On View, Gallery 208
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Title: St. Albert of Louvain
Place: Flanders (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1620
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 34.7 × 45.8 cm (13 5/8 × 18 in.); Framed: 58.5 × 69.3 × 6.4 cm (23 × 27 1/4 × 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Bequest of Dr. John J. Ireland
Reference Number: 1968.96
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/28874/manifest.json

Leo van Puyvelde, Les Esquisses de Rubens (Basel, 1940), pp. 27, 76, no. 38, pl. 38.
Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, “Rubens’ Paintings in America,” Art Quarterly 9 (1946), p. 160, no. 76.
Jan Albert Goris and Julius S. Held, Rubens in America (New York, 1947), cat. no. 60, pl. 59.
Leo van Puyvelde, The Sketches of Rubens (London, 1947), no. 38, p. 78 [transl. of 1940 text].
Leo van Puyvelde, “L’Atelier et les Collaborateurs de Rubens,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th series, 35 (1949), p. 126.
Erik Larsen, P. P. Rubens: With a Complete Catalogue of His Works in America (Antwerp, 1952), no. 55, p. 217.
Oliver Millar, “The Whitehall Ceiling,” Burlington Magazine 98 (1956), p. 263.
John Rupert Martin, The Ceiling Paintings of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol. 1 (London, 1968), p. 183, fig. 193, no. 38a.
Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1967–68 (Chicago, 1968), p. 18.
Calendar of the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, November/ December 1968), cover ill. and p. 3 (ill.).
Gregory Martin, “The Ludwig Burchard Corpus,” Burlington Magazine 98 (1970), pp. 543–44.
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York, 1979), p. 242.
Michael Jaffé, Catalogo Completo: Rubens (Milan, 1989), p. 260, no. 639 (ill.).
Julius Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens (Princeton, 1980), vol. 1, cat. 26, pp. 34, 53, 54,(ill. vol. 2, fig. 27).
Anne-Marie Logan, review of Julius S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens: A Critical Catalogue in The Art Bulletin 63 (1981), p. 514.

New York, Schaeffer and Brandt, Inc., “Peter Paul Rubens,” November 23–December 19, 1942, cat. 16.
New York, E. and A. Silberman Galleries, “An Exhibition of Paintings for the benefit of the Research Fund of Art and Archeology,” The Spanish Institute, Inc., October 12–November 1, 1955, p. 7, cat. 17, ill. p. 29.

Matthäus Merian d. Ä., Basel, to 1650; by descent in Merian family to 1796; sold Basel, 1796, no. 27, for F10. Grazio Enea Lanfranconi, Bratislava, by 1895; sold Lempertz, Cologne, 21–23 October 1895, no. 174 as St. Jerome. Dr. Leo Cohn, Paris [according to Puyvelde 1940, no. 38]. Dr. Leo Charles Collins, New York [he lent the picture to Schaeffer and Brandt 1942; a Collins, an émigré, who was active both as a lawyer and art historian, was probably identical with Dr. Leo Cohn, originally of Vienna; see the introduction to Leo C. Collins, Hercules Seghers, Chicago, 1953]. E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York. John J. Ireland (died 1968), Chicago, by 1955 [lent to New York 1955]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1968.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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