by Mark Lamster
“Surely it would be better”: Rubens to Valavez, Feb. 20, 1626, in LPPR, 130.
a small female dog: On gifts for Marie, see Rooses, Rubens, 349. The necklace and dog may have been delivered on a later trip.
Luxembourg Palace: On the building and its architect, see Coope, Salomon de Brosse.
Rubens liked what he saw: De Brosse’s assimilation of Italian and northern European architectural vocabularies was something Rubens could intuitively appreciate; he approvingly referred to the building in his monograph on the palaces of Genoa.
“Italian painters could not do”: Quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 352.
The real challenge: On the difficulty of the Medici commission, see Belkin, Rubens, 181–90; and Saward, Golden Age of Marie de’ Medici.
“There is no more lovable soul”: Quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 350.
“incorrigible mania”: Rubens to Valavez, Dec. 26, 1625, in LPPR, 122. 106 “a comedy much more agreeable”: Quoted in Miller, Peiresc’s Europe, 70.
Lucas Vorsterman: On the Vorsterman affair, see Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,” in Rubens and His Circle, 114–25.
“I can no longer deal with him”: Rubens to Pieter van Veen, April 30, 1622, in LPPR, 87. Earlier, Rubens had informed Van Veen that “it seemed a lesser evil to have the work done in my presence by a well-intentioned young man, than by great artists according to their fancy.” Rubens to Van Veen, Jan. 23, 1619, in ibid., 69.
Charles de Longueval: On Longueval, see Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,” 114–25. If the term “propaganda” did not yet exist, the concept surely did.
“We have made almost nothing”: Rubens to Van Veen, April 30, 1622, in LPPR, 87.
“endangered by the attacks”: Quoted in Held, “Rubens and Vorsterman,” 116.
specifically enjoined from making direct overtures: “Experience has shown how damaging and prejudicial has been [the truce] now in effect, and that were we to continue with it, it would prove the total ruin of these realms.” Philip III to Archduke Albert, quoted in Israel, Dutch Republic, 73.
Bartholde van T’Serclaes: The widow of Florent van T’Serclaes, one of Maurice’s advisers. On the T’Serclaes affair, see especially ibid., 73–85.
two thousand cheeses: On the political and military landscape after the truce, see ibid, 96–161.
The whole fiasco: See ibid., 100–102; and Parker, Army of Flanders, 180–81.
“As far as contagion is concerned”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 3, 1623, in LPPR, 92.
“negotiating secretly for a truce”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 10, 1623, in ibid., 93.
“With the French it is a state maxim”: Rubens to Isabella, March 15, 1625, in ibid., 104.
“Taken in consideration of the merits”: Ordonnance de l’infante Isabelle, Sept. 30, 1623, in CDR, 3:248–49.
“many sovereigns have tried”: Inigo Brizuela (l’Eveque de Segovie) to Philip IV, Jan. 29, 1624, in ibid., 3:266. The patent of nobility was granted in Madrid on June 5. Ibid., 3:295.
“suspicious of his own shadow”: Rubens to Pierre Pecquius, Jan. 22, 1624, in LPPR, 96. Pecquius was chancellor of Brabant and a longtime Rubens associate.
“I laughed and replied”: Rubens to Pecquius, Sept. 30, 1623, in ibid., 94–95.
Clara Serena: On Rubens and her death, see CDR, 3:288. On speculation about her role in the court of the infanta and on Rubens’s portraits of her, see Logan, Peter Paul Rubens, 244. On the mourning portrait of Isabella, see White, Peter Paul Rubens, 194.
“a matter in which I fancy”: De Baugy, quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 394–95.
“contente to suspend their armes”: Trumbull, quoted in Sainsbury, 76.
The ground war in Flanders: “The chief reason why we decided to renew the war with the Dutch on the expiry of the truce, was that our army should engage them on land so that they should not have the forces to attempt ventures such as this by sea,” wrote Philip. Quoted in Israel, Dutch Republic, 131.
“There is no power”: Rubens to Valavez, Dec. 12, 1624, in LPPR, 98.
more of the status quo: On Breda, see Israel, Dutch Republic, 106–9.
“I am the busiest and most harassed”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 10, 1625, in LPPR, 101.
“while the subjects of the pictures”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, Oct. 29, 1626, in ibid., 149–51.
“without some explanation”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Jan. 20, 1628, in ibid., 231.
“He served as the interpreter”: Rubens to Peiresc, May 13, 1625, in ibid., 107–10.
“the greatest amateur”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 10, 1625, in ibid., 101.
a romantic and impulsive soul: Of Maria Anna, Charles wrote, “If you wonder how I can love before I see, the truth is I have both seen her picture and heard the report of her virtues by a number whom I trust, so as her idea is engraven in my heart where I hope to preserve it till I enjoy the principal.” Quoted in Brotton, Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 85. I am especially indebted to Brotton’s account of the trip by the “Smiths” to Spain (86–105) and the failed Spanish Match. Arturo Pérez-Reverte used this episode as the basis for his historical novel Captain Alatriste.
“as a cat doth a mouse”: Quoted in Brotton, Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 96.
“the danger of your life”: Quoted in ibid., 101.
“a shining Phoebus”: Quoted in Donovan, Rubens and England, 24.
“great difficulties might arise”: The Rubens-Buckingham dialogue is reconstructed from the notes taken by Gerbier. Sainsbury, 68–69.
“maintain this friendship”: Roger de Piles, “Life of Rubens” (1681), in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles, Lives of Rubens, 71.
“I hope Your Highness”: Rubens to Isabella, March 15, 1625, in LPPR, 103–7.
“It is up to you”: Rubens to Brant, July 20, 1625, in ibid., 113–14.
Such ciphers were typical: On secret codes of the time, see Callières, “The Use of Ciphers,” in Art of Diplomacy, 164–65. The book was first published in 1716 as The Art of Negotiating with Sovereign Princes, but reflected long-standing ideas on cryptography.
“I believe he will”: Rubens to Brant, July 20, 1625, in LPPR, 113–14.
“I have once more”: Rubens to Brant, Aug. 25, 1625, in ibid., 115.
“Should the English armada”: Rubens to Valavez, Sept. 19, 1625, in ibid., 115–17. For the raid on Cádiz, see Israel, Dutch Republic, 115–16.
“The only prudence”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 9, 1626, in LPPR, 123–25.
“I have no doubt”: Rubens to Valavez, Dec. 26, 1625, in ibid., 121–23.
“more grave than the illness”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, Oct. 15, 1626, in ibid., 145–47.
“I find it very hard”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, July 15, 1626, in ibid., 135–36.
CHAPTER V: THUNDER WITHOUT LIGHTNING
“I should like the whole world”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, April 22, 1627, in LPPR, 178.
The assault commenced at dawn: The Dutch attack on Kieldrecht, and Spinola’s defense, are recounted in detail by Rubens in a letter to Pierre Dupuy on Oct. 1, 1626. See ibid., 142–44.
“I assure you”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 10, 1625, in ibid., 102.
Fossa Mariana: On this project, see Israel, “A Spanish Project to Defeat the Dutch Without Fighting: The Rhine-Maas Canal, 1624–9,” in Conflicts of Empires, 45–62. The project was initially named the Fossa Eugeniana, for the infanta, Isabella Clara Eugenia. She chose to rename it for the Virgin.
“an easy project”: De la Cueva to Philip III, quoted in ibid., 45.
“He fears to embark”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Oct. 1, 1626, in LPPR, 143.
not without its detractors: On support of and resistance to the Fossa project, see Israel, “Spanish Project,” 49–53.
“Work progresses valiantly”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, Oct. 29, 1626, in LPPR, 150.
“Here we know nothing”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Nov. 19, 1626, in ibid., 156.
“up to the same number”: Rubens to Valavez, Feb. 15, 1626, in ibid., 128.
raided the Spanish merchant fleet: See Israel, Dutch Republic, 196–97.
“masters of the other hemisphere”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, June 29, 1628, in LPPR, 272. On Dutch colonial expansion generally, see especially Shorto, Island at the Center of the World; and Brook, Vermeer’s Hat.
“This city… languishes”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, May 28, 1627, in LPPR, 185.
justifiably elated: Pierre Dupuy, who had a chance to spend some time with the artist, dashed off a letter to their mutual friend Peiresc, noting that Rubens was “in a very good mood.” Dupuy to Peiresc, Jan. 11, 1627, in CDR, 4: 26. The brothers Jacques and Pierre Dupuy, along with Peiresc’s brother, the sieur de Valavez, became Rubens’s regular Paris correspondents after Peiresc left the capital for his home in Provence.
a truly staggering sum: After commissions, and the subtraction of a canvas, Rubens’s take was reduced to a still-princely 84,000 florins.
“some regret”: Quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 407.
copies of all the most important works: These may have been made at Buckingham’s expense, another benefit of the deal for Rubens.
“I may venture to say”: Quoted in Callières, Art of Diplomacy, 70.
“Suspension of Arms”: Gerbier to Rubens, Feb. 23, 1627, in Sainsbury, 71.
“England should be disabused”: Rubens as paraphrased by Gerbier in an undated memorandum, in ibid., 72–75.
“a great undertaking”: Gerbier to Rubens, March 9, 1627, in ibid., 77.
“As soon as the answer comes”: Rubens to Buckingham, April 21, 1627, in ibid., 79.
his tradesman’s status: In Spain, paintings were taxed as any ordinary manufactured goods, much to the consternation of the painters’ guild. See Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 91.
“I am displeased”: Philip to Isabella, quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 417.
“We are exhausted”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Oct. 21, 1627, in LPPR, 209.
“If Spanish pride”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, May 6, 1627, in ibid., 179.
“a man of the keenest intellect”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, June 4, 1627, in ibid., 186.
For a short biography of Scaglia, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 49. Entry by Toby Osborne.
“I have friends there”: Rubens to Gerbier, May 19, 1627, in Sainsbury, 84.
“His Excellency desires”: Ibid., 83–84.
“Rubens pasport is graunted”: Carleton to Conway, June 13, 1627, in ibid., 84.
“I must lett your Lord understand”: Carleton to Conway, July 2, 1627, in ibid., 85.
“My going thither”: Gerbier to Rubens, July 13, 1627 (1), in ibid., 88–89.
“I must tell you”: Gerbier to Rubens, July 13, 1627 (2), in ibid., 89–90.
he wrote to the artist directly: The warning was actually sent to Rubens in care of Arnold Lunden, an Antwerp relation who handled the painter’s correspondence from Holland in order to maintain secrecy.
“I regard the whole world”: Rubens to Valavez, Jan. 10, 1625, in LPPR, 102.
“Gerbier is a painter”: Isabella to Philip, quoted in Rooses, Rubens, 417.
“In this ombragious tyme”: Carleton to Conway, July 25, 1627, in Sainsbury, 91.
“walking from towne to towne”: Ibid.
Gerrit van Honthorst: On the Dutch painter, see J. Richard Judson, Gerrit van Honthorst, 1592–1656 (Doornspijk, Netherlands: Davaco, 1999).
Utrecht’s reputation: On painting and religion in Utrecht, see Joaneath Spicer and Lynn Federle Orr, eds., Masters of Light (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), in particular the essays by Benjamin Kaplan and Marten Jan Bok, and Bok’s biographies. Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes is especially insightful on the Rubens trip to Holland.
schuilkerken: On Catholic worship in Utrecht, see Spicer and Orr, Masters of Light, 60–72.
“to forget his sorrows”: Sandrart, reprinted in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles, Lives of Rubens, 40.
“towne withowt people”: Carleton to Chamberlain, Oct. 14, 1616, in ibid., 13.
a fantasy come alive: See Schama, Rembrandt’s Eyes, 247. Schama describes Utrecht as “a tantalizing vision of what a reconciled Netherlands might look like were [Rubens’s] patient labors for peace to bear fruit.”
“As far as he is excellent”: Sandrart, reprinted in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles, Lives of Rubens, 40.
“Rubens had brought nothing”: Gerbier, paraphrased by Sainsbury, 94.
“long abode there under pretense”: Carleton to Conway, Aug. 16, 1627, in ibid., 94.
“suspended between hope and fear”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Aug. 12, 1627, in LPPR, 196.
“never believed the English”: Ibid., 196–97. The fight for La Rochelle provides the backdrop to Alexandre Dumas’s historical novel The Three Musketeers.
“much grieved at the resolution”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Sept. 23, 1627, in LPPR, 205–6.
“It is thought for the present”: Rubens to Gerbier, Sept. 18, 1627, in Sainsbury, 100.
“be like thunder”: Ibid., 100–101.
“The business is at an end”: Ibid., 102–3.
“The game is at an end”: Gerbier to Conway, Sept. 25, 1627, in ibid., 98.
“No change of fortune”: Rubens to Buckingham, Sept. 18. 1627, in ibid., 103–4.
“He seems to me”: Rubens to Dupuy, Oct. 14, 1627, in LPPR, 208.
Buckingham sailed in disgrace: On the massacre at Île de Ré, see Gardiner, A History of England Under the Duke of Buckingham and Charles I, 164.
“And art return’d again”: Quoted in Donovan, Rubens and England, 30.
“Most impudent lies”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Dec. 30, 1627, in LPPR, 217.
“If it were for £2,000”: Quoted in Brotton, Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 122.
“This sale displeases me”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, June 15, 1628, in LPPR, 269.
“It is a fact well known”: Rubens related Gerbier’s message in a letter to Spinola on Dec. 17, 1627, in ibid., 215–16.
“The English are so embittered”: Ibid., 216.
CHAPTER VI: MORE USEFUL THAN INJURIOUS
“The interests of the whole world”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, July 20, 1628, in LPPR, 277.
Messia’s sitting: On Rubens’s portrait of the marquis, see Logan, Peter Paul Rubens, 231–32. An Immaculate Conception may also have been ordered with the portrait.
“grande aficionado”: Quoted in ibid., 231.
“greatest admirers”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Jan. 27, 1628, in CDR, 4:359.
“no taste for painting”: Ibid. Rubens compared Spinola’s knowledge of painting to that of a portefaix, “a porter.”
“If the king”: The conversation between Rubens and Vosberghen is a reconstruction based on the comprehensive précis Rubens delivered to Spinola in his letter of Feb. 11, 1628, in LPPR, 235–37.
“His Royal Majesty of Spain”: Rubens to Vosberghen, March 18, 1628, in ibid., 245–46.
“strange microcosm”: April 5, 1628, in Sainsbury, 114–16.
“When any one thinks of agreeing”: Spinola to Rubens, Dec. 21, 1627, in ibid., 109.
the salient points: Gerbier adumbrated these in his letter to Rubens of March 30, 1628, in ibid., 109–13.
“Our city is going”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Aug. 10, 1628, in LPPR, 279.
“great enterprises”: Rubens to Olivares, Aug. 1, 1631, in ibid., 378.
there were but two options: On Spain’s political choices, see Israel, Dutch Republic, 223–50; and Elliott, Count-Duke, 323–58.
“Never in history”: Quoted in Elliott, Count-Duke, 329.
“gaining authority”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, April 13, 1628, in LPPR, 256. 179–80 “lazy and indolent”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, April 27, 1628, in ibid., 259.
“The Spaniards think”: Rubens to Jacques Dupuy, July 20, 1628, in ibid., 276.
a Sol
omonic decision: See Elliott, Count-Duke, 346–58; and Israel, Dutch Republic, 223–49.
a subject for his art: One Occasio drawing was a study for a painting, The Victor Seizing the Opportunity for Peace (c. 1630), no longer extant. The two mordant images, Victims of War and Two Captured Soldiers, survive. See Held, Oil Sketches.
“may be pushed forward”: Philip IV to Isabella, July 4 and 6, 1628, in Rooses, Rubens, 446–50.
“my other self”: Rubens to Gevaerts, Dec. 29, 1628, in LPPR, 295.
his accumulated wealth: On the Rubens estate, see Rooses, Rubens, 451.
“a spectacle worthy of admiration”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Dec. 2, 1628, in LPPR, 291.
Madrid’s Real Alcázar: On the palace and its art program, see Orso, Philip IV and the Decoration of the Alcázar of Madrid.
Rubens came alone: It is possible he was accompanied by a small retinue of servants and assistants.
These pictures: On the paintings Rubens made for and in Spain, see Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 57–112. See also Volk, “Rubens in Madrid and the Decoration of the Salón Nuevo in the Palace.”
celebrating the Eucharist: See Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 42.
“he often confers in secret”: Pamphili and Mocenigo quoted in LPPR, 283.
“the love that you have shown me”: Quoted in Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 35–38.
“severe” and “supercilious”: Rubens to Peiresc, Aug. 9, 1629, in LPPR, 322.
“the sport of fortune”: Rubens to Pierre Dupuy, Oct. 14, 1627, in ibid., 208.
According to Francisco Pacheco: For the text of Pacheco’s discussion of Rubens’s friendship with Velázquez, see Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 190.
“on the spot”: Rubens to Gerbier, March 15, 1640, in LPPR, 412. Rubens may have made more than one trip to the Escorial. He described the (lost) painting of the Escorial in an undated letter to Gerbier the next month.
their work was inherently irreconcilable: On Rubens and Velázquez, see Vergara, Spanish Patrons, 106–9. What influence the two men had on each other, if any, is a matter of academic debate.
regular instruction in drawing: On Philip IV and the arts, see Elliott, Count-Duke, 169–91.
“The king takes great delight”: Rubens to Peiresc, Dec. 29, 1628, in Rooses, Rubens, 479.
