drawing
- Museum number
- 1994,0514.34
- Description
-
The Fall of the Damned with many-headed dragons; figures surrounding in the lower right half of the composition; connected with 'Fall of the Damned' (Munich); male and female figures, falling with and being attacked by devils and monsters, in one main group with monster with hydra-type monster at bottom
Black and red chalk with wash in various shades of brown wash
- Production date
- 1614-1625
- Dimensions
-
Height: 748 millimetres
-
Width: 476 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- The initial drawing for this composition is now considered not to be the work of Rubens, but rather a studio assistant. However, Rubens may have made subsequent alterations to the composition with brush in part of the image. The composition itself relates to Rubens’ painting of the ‘Fall of the Damned’ in the Munich Alte Pinakothek (inv. KdK 194) though it was certainly not preparatory to it. It numbers among five similar oil drawings related to this painting now in the British Museum. These may have related to an abandoned project to produce prints after Rubens painting or may have served some other unknown purpose within Rubens’ studio. For the etching by Pieter Soutman dated 1642 with the same composition (on two plates), see R,3.2.
See Oo,3.9 and 1994,01514.33-36 for the other drawings (all of which were transferred from the National Gallery), and 1994,0514.33 for further curatorial comment.
Lit: J. Rowlands, ‘Rubens: Drawings and Sketches’, exhibition catalogue, British Museum,1977, no. 91.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1977 BM, Rubens drawings and sketches, no.91
1993 May-Jun, Rubens House, Antwerp, 'Rubens' no. 134
- Acquisition date
- 1994
- Acquisition notes
- This drawing along with fourteen others by Rubens and his assistants, originally purchased by the National Gallery from Sir Robert Peel in 1871, was deposited on loan to the Department of Prints and Drawings by the National Gallery in 1935 and formally transferred in 1994.
Possibly Johan van der Marck sale, Amsterdam, 29 Nov., 1773, portfolio P, which includes 4 drawings of the Fall of the Damned by Rubens, in colour.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1994,0514.34
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1972,U.912
-
Miscellaneous number: NG.853.b
