Massacre of the Innocents (Rubens)
Encyclopedia
The Massacre of the Innocents is the title of either of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting an episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents
Massacre of the Innocents
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...

 as related in the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

.

The lost masterpiece

The first version painted by Rubens dates from around 1611–12. In the seventeenth-century , the painting was part of the Liechtenstein Collection
Liechtenstein Museum
The Liechtenstein Museum is in Vienna, Austria, named after the princely House of Liechtenstein, one of Europe's oldest noble families. The museum includes the Princely Collections containing important European works of art, forming one of the world's leading private art collections.The museum has...

 in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, along with another Rubens' masterpiece, Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah (painting)
Samson and Delilah is a painting by the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens . It dates from about 1609 to 1610.-Narrative:...

. After having been miscatalogued by Vincenzio Fanti in 1767, it was attributed to one of Rubens' assistants, Jan van den Hoecke
Jan van den Hoecke
Jan van den Hoecke , also known as Johannes or Giovanni and van Hoek, van Hoeck, or Vanhoek, was a Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman. He was born and died in Antwerp.-Biography:...

, after Rubens. There, however, it remained until it was sold to an Austrian family in 1920. It was subsequently loaned in 1923 to Stift Reichersberg
Independent Augustinian Communities
Independent Augustinian communities are Roman Catholic religious communities that follow the Augustinian Rule, but are not under the jurisdiction of the Prior General of the Augustinian hermits in Rome....

, a monastery in northern Austria.

In 2001, the painting was seen by George Gordon, an expert in Flemish and Dutch paintings at Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

 in London. He was persuaded that it was indeed a Rubens by its similar characteristics and style to the Samson and Delilah picture, painted at around the same time. The work was sold at auction at Sotheby's, London on July 10, 2002 for £49.5 million (CAD $117 Million) to Canadian businessman Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet , in Canada known as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian businessman and art collector who, at the time of his death, was the richest person in Canada, and the ninth richest person in the world, according to Forbes.com, with assets of approximately US $17.9...

.

Following the auction the painting was loaned to the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...

 for a period before its transfer in 2008 to the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...

 in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, to whom Thomson had donated it, and which was undergoing a major rebuilding and expansion during those years.

Analysis

It is widely regarded as a demonstration of the artist's learnings from his time spent in Italy between 1600 and 1608, where he observed first-hand the works of Italian Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 painters like Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

. These influences are seen in this painting through the sheer drama and emotive dynamism of the scene, as well as the rich colour. There is also evidence of the use of chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....

.

Later version

Towards the end of his life, between 1636 and 1638, Rubens painted a second version of the Massacre of the Innocents. This version was acquired by the Alte Pinakothek
Alte Pinakothek
The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum situated in the Kunstareal in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings...

, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

by 1706, and it continues to hang there today.

A copy of this later version was made as an engraving in 1643 by Paulus Pontius.

External links

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