Pierre Paul RUBENS (Siegen, 1577 - Antwerp, 1640) The miracles of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola Canvas The miracles of the blessed Ignatius of Loyola, canvas, by P. P. Rubens 28.74 x 20.07 in. 73.0 x 51.0 cm Provenance: Collection of the commissioner Pietro Maria Gentile (1589/1590-1662) in Genoa ; Sold by the Gentile family between 1811 and 1818; Anonymous sale; London, Phillips, 3 May 1823, no. 73 (described as "Rubens. Our Saviour (sic) curing one possessed of an evil spirit, a sketch for the famous picture in the church of the Annunciation (sic) at Genova - this celebrated study was in the possession of the Gentile family at Genoa"); Marie Berthe Cabany Collection before 1874; Collection Raoul Cabany, Paris, 1874; Then by descent ; Private collection from the West of France Exhibitions: Rubens a Genova, Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, 6 October 2022-5 February 2023, catalogue edited by Nils Büttner and Anna Orlando, Electa, Milan, 2022, pp. 368-373 Bibliography: Description des beautés de Gênes et de ses environs, Gênes, 1768, p. 33 ; G. Brusco, Description des beautés de Gênes et de ses environs, Gênes, 1773, p. 47: "Une ébauche du tableau de St Ignace par Rubens, dont l'original est aux jésuites"; C. G. Ratti, Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello, Genoa, 1780, p. 121: "S. Ignazio operante miracoli, sbozzo della tavola d'altare che vedesi nella chiesa di S. Ambrogio, del Rubens"; Description des beautés de Génes et de ses environs, Gênes, 1781, pp. 35-36: "Une Ebauche du tableau de S. Ignace par Rubens, dont l'Original est aux jésuites"; Description des beautés de Génes et de ses environs, Gênes, 1788, p. 59: at the "Troisiem Sallon", "Un Ebauche du tableau de S. Ignace par Rubens, dont l'Original est aux Jesiutes"; W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Paintings With A Chronological History of The Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters Into England Since the French Revolution, London, 1824, II, p. 103, pp. 129-130, p.140, letters from James Irvine to William Buchanan; John Smith, A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters, IX, London, 1842, p. 337 ; Max Rooses, L'Œuvre de PP Rubens. Histoire et description de ses tableaux et dessins, Antwerp 1886-1892, II, 1888, p. 293; Hans Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Jacob Burchard, VIII Saints, 1972-1973, II, n°116-a p.80 ; P. Boccardo, Un avveduto collezionista di pittura del Seicento: Pietro Maria Gentile. Un inventario, un Reni inedito e alcune precisazioni su altre opere e sull'esito di una quadreria genovese, in Studi di Storia dell'Arte in onore di Denis Mahon, a cura di M. G. Bernardini, S. Danesi Squarzina, C. Strinati, Milan 2000, pp. 212-213 ; P. Boccardo, C. Di Fabio, Pietro Maria I Gentile (ante 1590 - post 1652), in L'Età di Rubens. Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, catalogo della mostra di Genova a cura di P. Boccardo e A. Orlando, Milan 2004, p. 379 ; G. Martin, Rubens a Genova's review in "The Burlington Magazine" 164, December 2022, pp. 1276-1277 ; A. Orlando, Tre Rubens genovesi. Nuovi dati di provenienza per il modelletto Pallavicino-Gentile, il San Sebastiano Spinola e la Sacra conversazione Balbi, in Itinerari rubensiani: la centralità dell'immagine del sacro, atti del convegno, Università di Genova, 19-20 gennaio 2023, in c.d.s. (Genova 2024) ; A. Orlando, Committenze illustri dei Pallavicino di Genova a Rubens e Van Dyck in I Pallavicino di Genova. Una stirpe obertenga patrizia genovese nella storia d'Europa e del Mediterraneo, a cura di A. Lercari, in c.d.s (Genova 2024) Our painting is the presentation model sent by Rubens from Antwerp to Genoa for approval by Pietro Maria Gentile, the commissioner of a large altarpiece for the Church of the Gesù in Genoa, where it is still in place. Throughout his life, Rubens maintained a particularly affectionate relationship with the city of Genoa and its great patrician and merchant families, who were among his main patrons. Antwerp and Genoa were two ports with trading links, and both, after years of war, returned to peace and reached the height of their prosperity, each becoming an artistic melting pot and a place of intense exchange and multiple inspirations. During his trip to Italy as court painter to Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Rubens stopped off in the Ligurian capital several times between 1600 and 1607. As in the other Peninsular cities he visited, he copied and recorded all the works he saw by the old and contemporary masters, visiting palaces and art collections. This gave him the opportunity to establish direct and sometimes very close relationships with the richest and most influential aristocrats in the city, and he received commissions for portraits and religious paintings. His monumental Circumcision (1605), financed by Marcello Pallavicino, was placed on the high altar of the Gesù church, alongside altarpieces by Cambiaso (1575), Barrocci (1596), Vouet (1622) and Guido Reni. Our painter returned to Antwerp and settled there permanently in 1608, where he immediately established himself as the city's leading painter of international renown, receiving commissions from the major European courts. The commission from Pietro Maria Gentile Pietro Maria Gentile (1589/90 - 1662) was still a young boy when Rubens stayed in Genoa. Fatherless from an early age, he showed a keen commercial sense, so much so that his uncle Geronimo Di Negro (Nicolo Pallavicino's business partner) hired him and entrusted him with assignments on the Madrid and Antwerp markets. He grew rich very quickly. He was soon able to buy several neighbouring properties, having them demolished to build his seafront residence above the ancient port. His palace overlooked the sea directly, near Piazza del Caricamento<a href="about:blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">^[i]</a>. It houses a rich collection that includes masterpieces by Guido Reni, Guerchin, Orazio Gentileschi (Sacrifice of Isaac)... Twenty years after our painting, it received two mythological paintings by Rubens depicting Hercules and Dejanira and Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, now at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin. Pietro Maria Gentile had married Nicolo Pallavicino's daughter around 1612. Pallavicino was particularly close to the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whom he met in Genoa during his stay there and from whom he commissioned a large number of works, including his portrait. During the Genoa exhibition "Rubens a Genova" in 2022-2023, the exhibition curator and Genoa historian Anna Orlando, who has worked on the relationship between the artist and Genoese collectors, revealed an archive document showing that the artist Peter Paul Rubens had asked Nicolo Pallavicino to be godfather to his son "Nicolo". Aged and ill, the godfather delegated one of his collaborators to represent him at the christening ceremony by means of the mandate that was presented at the exhibition. And it was Nicolo Pallavicino who financed the construction of the Church of Gesù, where Rubens's The Miracles of Blessed Ignatius can be seen, a stone's throw from Genoa's Palazzo Ducale, the sketch for which was commissioned and preserved by Pietro Maria Gentile. In 1619, Pietro Maria Gentile commissioned the Antwerp master to paint the Miracles of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola for the Church of the Gesù, in the chapel of his father-in-law, who had died that year. He kept the modello in his collection. At the time, Rubens was working on or had just finished a large altarpiece on the same subject for the Jesuit house in Antwerp, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For Genoa, the artist completely reinvented the composition. As was his wont, he painted an initial sketch of the setting in a first thought on oak panel, perhaps the one now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London <a href="about:blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">^[i]</a>. He then returned to his project for this more finished "presentation modello" on canvas. After its presentation in Genoa in 2022, the painting was cleaned. Since then, Nils Büttner has re-examined the work and told uś in an email dated 15 July 2024: "it must be considered as Rubens' work that was sent by Rubens as a modello. In fact, as our exhibition has clearly shown, the quality of its execution is far superior to that of the Dulwich sketch. Like most works from Rubens' studio, not all parts of this painting are by his hand, but 'Rubens with the participation of the studio' is an accurate description, as I believe I can recognise his hand in some parts. Indeed, the catch of light, the touches of glinting gold on the chasuble, the highlights of white elsewhere, certain modelled impastos, the construction of the folds and the fluidity of the brushwork all bear witness to the vigour of his clearly recognisable touch. The iconography of the altarpiece Established in Genoa in the 16th century, the Society of Jesus converted the former church of San Ambrogio on the model of the Gesù church in Rome. Their wealthy benefactors called on the best artists of the time to decorate it, including Rubens for the high altar in 1606. A key figure in the Counter-Reformation and the fight against the Protestants, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) is credited with many miracles and with exorcising crowds during his masses. The saint is depicted here standing before the altar, his arms outstretched in a sign of appeasement: he is the pivot of the composition, interceding between the people and heaven. The benefits of his prayer soon become apparent, and the viewer witnesses three miracles. In front of a balustrade, a possessed woman, her mouth wide open, her head thrown back, tugging at her long hair, is supported by a man seen from behind; another begs for healing with her hands clasped. In the centre, a young woman protects her three terrified children with her arms; like an allegory of Charity, she is also an allusion to Saint Ignatius' role as intercessor in difficult births. In front of her, a mother is stunned and amazed by the resurrection of her son, who lies on the funeral sheet and raises a hand. On the far right, an old washerwoman, whose arm had withered, regains the use of it and shows it by holding out a cloth. On the middle level, the saint is accompanied by four Jesuits, represented on his right. Above, two cherubs are flying, bearing a laurel wreath and a palm tree, symbols of victory and, for the first Christians, of martyrdom, an allusion to the missionary aspiration of the Society of Jesus and the glory of the order founded by Ignatius (who did not die a martyr's death). There are significant variations between our modello and the final large format. The position of the figures in the frieze in the foreground is similar. The only changes, on the right, are the position of the mother holding her child on the ground, with the child lying the other way round, and the introduction of an imploring old man. The painter also changed the colours of some of the clothes. In the final version, Ignatius of Loyola's body and face are turned towards heaven in ecstasy, and he no longer makes the gesture of blessing towards the group of lay people on the left. He is now accompanied by two clerics in white robes. Similarly, the architecture sketched out on our canvas has been precisely described and the curtain enlarged. These changes show that the artist had to adapt to the proportions of the altarpiece; he had to fill in certain spaces left empty by the enlargement of his project. The altarpiece, installed in 1620, focused on several important issues: the forthcoming canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola (1622), the importance of the Jesuits both in Antwerp and in Italy, and the spearheading of the Counter-Reformation. Rubens created a new, militant iconography, incorporating classical references (Raphael, the Transfiguration, Veronese, Caravaggio) in a new Baroque style that was pioneering at the time. He combined realistic, almost trivial details (such as the dirty feet in the foreground) with the great tradition of the Renaissance, the groups of figures being united by a golden light that radiated throughout. His influence on the development of history painting proved decisive, both on the generation of Genoese realist and baroque artists (Fiasella, Strozzi, Puget) and later on the Romantic generation. The swirling forms, the shimmering lights and the clothes already evoke Delacroix's large formats. The story of the rediscovery This "presentation model" remained in the family of Pietro Maria Gentile between 1619 and the early 19th century, and was passed on to his descendants, who kept it in the galleries of Palazzo Gentile. Its presence can be traced back to the works on Genoa and its treasures written by Giacomo Brusco and Carlo Giuseppe Ratti at the end of the eighteenth century (op. cit. above). In the 1788 edition of his book on Genoa, Ratti mentions his presence at the third salon. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, the great English art dealer William Buchanan expressed an interest in this sketch to James Irvine, an art broker present in Italy at the time. In his book Memoirs of Painting, published in 1824, Buchanan reveals correspondence about the Gentile collection on three occasions. In a letter to William Buchanan dated 25 October 1802, James Irvine explained the steps he had taken to try to obtain the sale of certain paintings from the Gentile collection, including the "finished sketch" of Saint Ignatius, which he described as a "charming thing". The work was presented at a Philips sale on 3 May 1823, lot 73. In 1875, the work was mentioned in an inventory, the liquidation statement of 24 January 1875 of the estate of Madame Marie Berthe Cabany, who had died on 27 November 1874. In this division, the work went to her son Raoul Cabany, and was then passed on by succession to the current owner. This is a major rediscovery of a work that disappeared 200 years ago and has remained in the collection of a French family for at least 150 years. [1] The Italian language developed several concepts that are used in French for the general term esquisse: schizzo (first draft), bozzetto (working sketch by the painter), modello (model-model), ricordo (small-format retake after the painting has been executed). [2] Also in 1622, Peter Paul Rubens published the Palazzi di Genova, a collection of prints illustrating the architecture of Genoa's sumptuous palaces. [3] In Genoa, he saw works by Caravaggio (Judith and Holofernes from the Mattei collection) and Carracci, and met Orazio Gentileschi. [4] The Equestrian Portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria (Genoa, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola). [5] Now in the city centre, a few steps from San Lorenzo cathedral and the Gesù. [6] 7 Julius S. Held, The oil stetches of Peter Paul Rubens A critical Catalogue, 1980, The National Gallery of Art, Princeton University Press, volume 1, p.566-568, n°411, repr. volume 2, plate 400. Peter Paul RUBENS (Siegen, 1577 - Antwerp, 1640) 73.0 x 51.0 cm Our painting is the presentation model sent by Rubens from Antwerp to Genoa to be approved by Pietro Maria Gentile, the commissioner of a large altarpiece for the church of the Gesù in Genoa, where it is still in place. Throughout his life, Rubens maintained a particularly affectionate relationship with the city of Genoa and its great patrician and merchant families, who were among his main patrons. Antwerp and Genoa were two ports with trading links, and both, after years of war, returned to peace and reached the height of their prosperity, each becoming an artistic melting pot and a place of intense exchange and multiple inspirations. During his trip to Italy as court painter to Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Rubens stopped off in the Ligurian capital several times between 1600 and 1607. As in the other Peninsular cities he visited, he copied and recorded all the works he saw by the old and contemporary masters, visiting palaces and art collections. This gave him the opportunity to establish direct and sometimes very close relationships with the richest and most influential aristocrats in the city, and he received commissions for portraits and religious paintings. His monumental Circumcision (1605), financed by Marcello Pallavicino, was placed on the high altar of the Gesù church, alongside altarpieces by Cambiaso (1575), Barrocci (1596), Vouet (1622) and Guido Reni. Our painter returned to Antwerp and settled there permanently in 1608, where he immediately established himself as the city's leading painter of international renown, receiving commissions from the major European courts. The commission from Pietro Maria Gentile Pietro Maria Gentile (1589/90 - 1662) was still a young boy when Rubens stayed in Genoa. Fatherless from an early age, he showed a keen commercial sense, so much so that his uncle Geronimo Di Negro (a partner of Nicolo Pallavicino) hired him and entrusted him with assignments on the Madrid and Antwerp markets. He grew rich very quickly. He was soon able to buy several neighbouring properties, having them demolished to build his seafront residence above the ancient port. His palace overlooked the sea directly, near Piazza del Caricamento<a href="about:blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">^[i]</a>. It houses a rich collection that includes masterpieces by Guido Reni, Guerchin, Orazio Gentileschi (Sacrifice of Isaac)... Twenty years after our painting, it received two mythological paintings by Rubens depicting Hercules and Dejanira and Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, now at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin. Pietro Maria Gentile had married Nicolo Pallavicino's daughter around 1612. Pallavicino was particularly close to the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whom he met in Genoa during his stay there and from whom he commissioned a large number of works, including his portrait. During the Genoa exhibition "Rubens a Genova" in 2022-2023, the exhibition curator and Genoa historian Anna Orlando, who has worked on the relationship between the artist and Genoese collectors, revealed an archive document showing that the artist Peter Paul Rubens had asked Nicolo Pallavicino to be godfather to his son "Nicolo". Aged and ill, the godfather delegated one of his collaborators to represent him at the christening ceremony by means of the mandate that was presented at the exhibition. And it was Nicolo Pallavicino who financed the construction of the Church of Gesù, where Rubens's The Miracles of Blessed Ignatius can be seen, a stone's throw from Genoa's Palazzo Ducale, the sketch for which was commissioned and preserved by Pietro Maria Gentile. In 1619, Pietro Maria Gentile commissioned the Antwerp master to paint the Miracles of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola for the Church of the Gesù, in the chapel of his father-in-law, who had died that year. He kept the modello in his collection. At the time, Rubens was working on or had just finished a large altarpiece on the same subject for the Jesuit house in Antwerp, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For Genoa, the artist completely reinvented the composition. As was his wont, he painted an initial sketch of the setting in a first thought on oak panel, perhaps the one now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London <a href="about:blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">^[i]</a>. He then returned to his project for this more finished "presentation modello" on canvas. After its presentation in Genoa in 2022, the painting was cleaned. Since then, Nils Büttner has re-examined the work and told uś in an email dated 15 July 2024: "it must be considered as Rubens' work that was sent by Rubens as a modello. In fact, as our exhibition has clearly shown, the quality of its execution is far superior to that of the Dulwich sketch. Like most works from Rubens' workshop, not all parts of this painting are by his hand, but 'Rubens with the participation of the workshop' is an accurate description, as I believe I can recognise his hand in some parts. Indeed, the catch of light, the touches of glinting gold on the chasuble, the highlights of white elsewhere, certain modelled impastos, the construction of the folds and the fluidity of the brushwork all bear witness to the vigour of his clearly recognisable touch. The iconography of the altarpiece Established in Genoa in the 16th century, the Society of Jesus converted the former church of San Ambrogio on the model of the Gesù church in Rome. Their wealthy benefactors called on the best artists of the time to decorate it, including Rubens for the high altar in 1606. A key figure in the Counter-Reformation and the fight against the Protestants, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) is credited with many miracles and with exorcising crowds during his masses. The saint is depicted here standing before the altar, his arms outstretched in a sign of appeasement: he is the pivot of the composition, interceding between the people and heaven. The benefits of his prayer soon become apparent, and the viewer witnesses three miracles. In front of a balustrade, a possessed woman, her mouth wide open, her head thrown back, tugging at her long hair, is supported by a man seen from behind; another begs for healing with her hands clasped. In the centre, a young woman protects her three terrified children with her arms; like an allegory of Charity, she is also an allusion to Saint Ignatius' role as intercessor in difficult births. In front of her, a mother is stunned and amazed by the resurrection of her son, who lies on the funeral sheet and raises a hand. On the far right, an old washerwoman, whose arm had withered, regains the use of it and shows it by holding out a cloth. On the middle level, the saint is accompanied by four Jesuits, represented on his right. Above, two cherubs are flying, bearing a laurel wreath and a palm tree, symbols of victory and, for the first Christians, of martyrdom, an allusion to the missionary aspirations of the Society of Jesus and the glory of the order founded by Ignatius (who did not die a martyr's death). There are significant variations between our modello and the final large format. The position of the figures in the frieze in the foreground is similar. The only changes, on the right, are the position of the mother holding her child on the ground, with the child lying the other way round, and the introduction of an imploring old man. The painter also changed the colours of some of the clothes. In the final version, Ignatius of Loyola's body and face are turned towards heaven in ecstasy, and he no longer makes the gesture of blessing towards the group of lay people on the left. He is now accompanied by two clerics in white robes. Similarly, the architecture sketched out on our canvas has been precisely described and the curtain enlarged. These changes show that the artist had to adapt to the proportions of the altarpiece; he had to fill in certain spaces left empty by the enlargement of his project. The altarpiece, installed in 1620, focused on several important issues: the forthcoming canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola (1622), the importance of the Jesuits both in Antwerp and in Italy, and the spearheading of the Counter-Reformation. Rubens created a new, militant iconography, incorporating classical references (Raphael, the Transfiguration, Veronese, Caravaggio) in a new Baroque style that was pioneering at the time. He combined realistic, almost trivial details (such as the dirty feet in the foreground) with the great tradition of the Renaissance, the groups of figures being united by a golden light that radiated throughout. His influence on the development of history painting proved decisive, both on the generation of Genoese realist and baroque artists (Fiasella, Strozzi, Puget) and later on the Romantic generation. The swirling forms, the shimmering lights and the clothes already evoke Delacroix's large formats. The story of the rediscovery This "presentation model" remained in the family of Pietro Maria Gentile between 1619 and the early nineteenth century, and was passed on to his descendants, who kept it in the galleries of Palazzo Gentile. Its presence can be traced back to the works on Genoa and its treasures written by Giacomo Brusco and Carlo Giuseppe Ratti at the end of the eighteenth century (op. cit. above). In the 1788 edition of his book on Genoa, Ratti mentions his presence at the third salon. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, the great English art dealer William Buchanan expressed an interest in this sketch to James Irvine, an art broker present in Italy at the time. In his book Memoirs of Painting, published in 1824, Buchanan reveals correspondence about the Gentile collection on three occasions. In a letter to William Buchanan dated 25 October 1802, James Irvine explained the steps he had taken to try to obtain the sale of certain paintings from the Gentile collection, including the "finished sketch" of Saint Ignatius, which he described as a "charming thing". The work was presented at a Philips sale on 3 May 1823, lot 73. In 1875, the work was mentioned in an inventory, the liquidation statement of 24 January 1875 of the estate of Madame Marie Berthe Cabany, who had died on 27 November 1874. In this division, the work went to her son Raoul Cabany, and was then passed on by succession to the current owner. So this is a major rediscovery of a work that disappeared 200 years ago and has remained in a French family collection for at least 150 years. [1] The Italian language has developed a number of concepts that are used in French for the general term esquisse: schizzo (first draft), bozzetto (working sketch by the painter), modello (model-model), ricordo (small-format retake after the painting has been executed). [2] Also in 1622, Peter Paul Rubens published Palazzi di Genova, a collection of prints illustrating the architecture of Genoa's sumptuous palaces. [3] In Genoa, he saw works by Caravaggio (Judith and Holofernes from the Mattei collection) and Carracci, and met Orazio Gentileschi. [4] The Equestrian Portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria (Genoa, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola). [5] Now in the city centre, a stone's throw from San Lorenzo cathedral and the Gesù. [6] 7 Julius S. Held, The oil stetches of Peter Paul Rubens A critical Catalogue, 1980, The National Gallery of Art, Princeton University Press, volume 1, p.566-568, n°411, repr. volume 2, plate 400.