A painting that lost its identity over 300 years has now been reaffirmed as an important old master work and will be offered at a Sotheby’s sale in London in early July.
The painting in question is that of Sir Peter Paul Rubens Saint Sebastian cared for by two angels. It has an estimate of £4-6 million ($5-7.7 million).
The story of the Rubens is a “classic” artistic mystery about a painting that, between leaving a prestigious Italian collection in the 1730s and reappearing in Missouri in the 20th century, had lost all provenance for centuries. This mystery is now solved.
Researchers and experts from the Sotheby’s team used X-rays to look beneath the painting’s surface and recently confirmed it was indeed a work by Rubens. Moreover, they discovered that it was the “primary” version of another important work by the artist, which until very recently was considered unique.
The painting had last been recorded in the collection of the artist’s Genoese patrons, the Spinola family, in the early 1730s. When the work resurfaced at auction 15 years ago, it was with a attribution to the French painter Laurent de la Hyre. At the time, it sold at Ivey-Selkirk, a St. Louis auction house, for $40,000, according to the Artnet price database. Although modest by the current estimate, this sum was still several multiples of the high estimate of $8,000.
Shortly after this auction, it was identified as a composition by Rubens, and scholars embarked on extensive research that eventually matched the canvas to a Rubens referenced in family wills and inventories. Spinola.
The painting was probably executed around 1606-8 in Italy, or around 1609-10 in Antwerp, although there is no full scholarly consensus. Rubens’ close association with the Spinola family began when he was first in Genoa in 1604 and lasted long after his return to Antwerp at the end of 1608.
It is likely that the painting was commissioned by Ambrogio Spinola (1594-1630), an Italian nobleman and military commander, with whom the artist shared diplomatic, political and artistic interests, and whom he painted on several occasions. The earliest known record of the painting is in the will of Ambrogio’s son, Filippo Spinola in 1655, before it passed through successive generations of the family for eighty years. The track went cold with the patron’s granddaughter, Anna Spinola, who was listed in 1731 as having inherited the painting.
Saint Sebastian cared for by two angels then passed from the Spinola family and through the female line via Anna Spinola, and became untraceable until it reappeared in the United States 230 years later, in a Missouri collection in 1963. It was later acquired by the current owner in the aforementioned auction in 2008 as a painting by Laurent de la Hyre.
The highest price ever for a Hyre work at auction is €918,400 ($922,000) for Narcissus, sold at Artcurial Paris last fall. Meanwhile, the record for a work by Rubens at auction is £49.5 million ($76.5 million) for massacre of the innocent (1609-11), sold at Sotheby’s London in 2002.
X-ray analysis has also revealed additional secrets about the painting’s status as a master version of another Rubens painting of the same subject which was owned for centuries by the Italian Corsini family and now hangs. at the Galleria Corsini in Rome.
The artist made sweeping changes to the design as he painted the Spinola version, altering and refining the composition as he worked. For example, Saint Sebastian was first painted face to face, twisting to the left and raising his right arm above his head. There was originally an arrow piercing his right thigh, and the armor was a later addition to the work, painted over something else that Rubens scratched off. Meanwhile, X-ray analysis of Corsini’s image showed no significant changes, suggesting it was executed afterward, and once Rubens was happy with his design, according to Sotheby’s.
The find is “proof that even the names of great artists can be lost to history,” said George Gordon, Sotheby’s co-president for Old Master paintings worldwide. “Fortunately, the fascinating detail revealed by scientific analysis, combined with meticulous research and the consideration of eminent scholars, rightly affirms the reattribution of this work to one of the greatest painters of his time, and we shows that we still have so much to discover, even about the artist’s best-known works.
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