Lot 981 | The Rest during the Flight into Egypt with Saints

RUBENS, PETER PAUL
1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp
Follower 17th C.

Title: The Rest during the Flight into Egypt with Saints.
Technique: Oil on copper.
Measurement: 56 x 72,5cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

The present representation is based on the painting with the same depiction by Peter Paul Rubens in the Museo del Prado (Inv. No. P001640, oil on panel, 87 x 125 cm). It is a smaller format of a larger prototype, transferred to a precious carrier, which made it possible to achieve effects of greater brilliance than a wooden panel. Rubens himself had experimented with copper as a picture carrier, especially during his stay in Italy; in this case, however, the author of the work was to be one of his successors, reproducing a successful formula on an expensive carrier. The work in the Prado was executed in the years 1632 - 1635; the present painting, because of its style, which still dates from the 17th century, must have been painted some years later.

We are grateful to Hans Vlieghe, Antwerp, for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph.