Rubens Huis by Matt Morley

If there is one artist who shall forever be associated with Antwerp, it is Peter Paul Rubens. A prolific 17th-Century painter in the Baroque style, Rubens spent time learning his art in Italy before returning to his homeland to set up a hugely successful studio in central Antwerp. Today, the building is pen to the public and remains testimony to both his business acumen and remarkable artistic talent.

Peter Paul Rubens bought his house on the Wapper in Antwerp in 1610. He then went on to add a semicircular statue gallery, a large studio and a portico, all of which reflected the two major influences on Antwerp’s most celebrated artist: Greco-Roman antiquity and the Italian Renaissance.

Europe’s bourgeoisie began building their own private art collections in the late 16th-Century and at the pinnacle of his career, Rubens’ collection was the largest in all of the Low Countries. His particular penchant was for classical sculpture and paintings from Italy and the Southern Netherlands.

Rubens owned pieces from his dedicated artistic disciple, Van Dyck, and his own role model from Italy, Titian, but also had a superb collection of antique sculptures, many of which are still on display around the house today. Their relevance is clearly more than just decorative of course; they formed part of the artistic wallpaper with which Rubens chose to surround himself. Just like his carefully tended garden and the many books in his extensive library, these were sources of daily inspiration that reminded him of the sublime potential of art.

As the most famous painter of his era, Rubens was never short of commissions, to meet the huge demand for work however, he had to run a large and well-organised studio. A visit to his impressive studio space sheds light on the process Rubens and his team went through to ensure their ‘business’ was a continuing success.

Most of the artworks produced here were team efforts. Influenced strongly by the Italian Renaissance, Rubens saw his role as being that of the mastermind behind a painting; it was his job to conceive their composition and make the initial designs before handing the actual job of painting over to his assistants. In short: the masters did the thinking, the assistants did the handiwork.

Having supervised this process from a distance, he would then return to add the final necessary touches of genius and flair to the partially finished canvas. This practice was perfectly common at the time, with specialists even being called in to add particular details such as a war scene, flowers, animals or human faces as and when a painting required it.

A large part of the output of Rubens’ studio consisted of copies of the master’s originals that could be made by his assistants with far less supervision, making them a highly profitable, if somewhat repetitive work stream. A patron interested in purchasing a wholly original artwork on the other hand would be asked to sign a contract to that effect and then expect to receive a hefty bill for the privilege!