Before 'The Raising of the Cross': the origins of Rubens's earliest Antwerp altarpieces.(painter Peter Paul Rubens)

The period defined by Peter Paul Rubens's return to the Spanish Netherlands from Rome in December 1608, his appointment as court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in September 1609, and his signing of the contract for The Raising of the Cross [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 1, 2 OMITTED] in June 1610 marks a critical phase in his oeuvre and in his career.(1) During these eighteen months Rubens was involved in a series of high-profile public commissions in Antwerp, including The Adoration of the Magi (Prado, Madrid), hung in the Town Hall, The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED], mounted in the Dominican Church (now St. Paul), and The Assumption of the Virgin, intended for the high altar of Antwerp Cathedral; at the same time, he was involved in the execution of other pictures, such as the monumental Samson and Delilah (National Gallery, London), for an elite circle of private patrons. It has also been proposed that Rubens may have already begun work on The Raising of the Cross,(2) a project for the no longer extant high altar of the former parish church of St. Walburgis [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED] that is arguably his most important altarpiece.

Although all of these paintings are well known, their earliest history is obscure. As the most recent investigations show, the documentation of these works is so meager (or lacking altogether) and their preliminary studies are so few (or even nonexistent) that questions of their origins and evolution have for the most part remained unanswered (or even unasked). That we have so little information about the circumstances that led to the commission of major works such as The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament,(3) or, for that matter, The Raising of the Cross,(4) is especially frustrating: this data might tell us more about Rubens's reentry into the art world of the Spanish Netherlands following his eight years in Italy and about his subsequent involvement in the program of church renewal that coincided with the introduction of the Twelve Years Truce (1609-21).(5) In particular, it would also give us a more informed basis for assessing Rubens's response to the formal and iconographic demands of the Post-Tridentine Flemish altarpiece.(6)

This essay attempts to make greater sense of what we already know (or think we know) about Rubens's earliest Antwerp altarpieces by rigorously reevaluating the evidence amassed during the last four centuries in light of new information and new perspectives. It presents both an explanation of the origins and evolution of The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and a more general reassessment of Rubens's career just after his return to Antwerp, a period that has received relatively little critical attention. This line of inquiry is now possible because of discoveries brought to light during the recent restoration of The Raising of the Cross (initiated in 1978 and completed in 1992) and the subsequent publication of these findings in the technical report and related works on the altarpiece's history and iconography.(7) It also draws on significant new additions to the Rubens literatures and to research on the political, religious, and cultural milieu of Antwerp and of the Spanish Netherlands more generally at the beginning of the seventeenth century.(9)

De Bisschop's Drawings and Their Implications

Two nearly identical drawings [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 5, 6 OMITTED], both of which have been tentatively attributed to the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Jan de Bisschop,(10) provide an important key to the earliest history of Rubens's earliest Antwerp altarpieces.(11) As initially observed by the noted Rubens scholar Ludwig Burchard,(12) the owner of one of the drawings [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED], both works depict a triptych whose center panel is the modello (a preparatory oil sketch, in this case presumed to be lost) for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.(13) Likewise, the wings of the triptych have been identified as the two modelli in Dulwich [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 7 OMITTED], for the saints that were eventually executed on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 2, 24 OMITTED].(14)

It appears likely that all three modelli were originally owned by Cornelis van der Geest,(15) a wealthy Antwerp merchant and art collector,(16) who was also Rubens's friend and mentor. Van der Geest has been identified as the putative donor of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament (also called the Venerabel Kapel), the chapel of the Sodality of the Holy Name of Jesus (De Soeten Naem), in the Dominican Church;(17) he is also considered to be the probable instigator (and chief financial backer) of the commission for The Raising of the Cross, a work for the high altar of St. Walburgis, his parish church, located near his house in the Mattenstraat.(18) The history of the three modelli prior to the appearance of the Dulwich panels at a sale in The Hague on September 4, 1747, is not known;(19) however, as Hans Vlieghe has noted,(20) the date of this sale is useful since it provides a terminus ante quem for the separation of the preparatory studies.

Although discussions of the drawings have duly noted their incorporation of the three modelli and, in particular, that they include the only record of the lost modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, there has been surprisingly little curiosity about the possibility that they depict a genuine study for an authentic work. Initially taking their lead from Burchard, and more recently from Vlieghe, most scholars appear to agree that because the modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and the modelli for the saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross are so clearly associated with two different altarpieces, the triptych depicted in the two drawings does not (or cannot) represent a coherent design for an actual commission. Explanations for the triptych's "invention" tend to fall into two categories: either the three panels were physically attached to each other (by a collector or a dealer) and then copied by de Bisschop(21) or they were fictively assembled by de Bisschop himself in the drawings.(22)

The only scholar to have given serious consideration to the possibility that the triptych represents a real work for a specific site is Burchard, who subsequently changed his mind. Yet I will claim both that Burchard's initial observation was correct and that it has implications both different and more significant than he himself appears to have realized. Not only do I propose that the triptych presents a formally and iconographically lucid program, but I also make three additional claims for it: the triptych represents the earliest version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament; it was designed for the high altar of the church of St. Walburgis; and it is the source for both those works with which van der Geest was later associated - The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.

Mapping the circuitous route by which the original triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis evolved into these two works provides a new perspective on several larger issues. What I demonstrate below is that the triptych marks the initial point on an extended time line [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 8 OMITTED] in which previous claims about the evolution of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The Raising of the Cross can be more fully reassessed. Second, I also attempt to show that the program of the triptych indicates a previously unrecognized connection between these two altarpieces: it attests not only to their common origins but also to their common iconology in terms of their parallel references to the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Finally; I suggest that the way in which the triptych evolved into two works that are in some ways similar but in other ways profoundly different offers a new perspective on the larger issue of the design and iconography of altarpieces in the Spanish Netherlands at the beginning of the seventeenth century and new insight into Rubens's process of invention.

De Bisschop's "Triptych": The Origin and Evolution of The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament

The triptych depicted in de Bisschop's drawings presents a unified view that extends across all three panels to create an elongated version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Its subject, setting, and composition indicate its debt to Raphael's Disputa [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 9 OMITTED], a fresco that Rubens knew firsthand as well as from reproductive engravings.(23) Both the triptych and The Disputa, which date exactly one hundred years apart and which may have been commissioned in response to similar circumstances, portray a fictive council composed of Church Fathers, theologians, saints, and holy witnesses who explicate and defend Christ's corporeal presence in the Eucharist within an edifice thought to symbolize the Church on earth.(24) As depicted in the center panel of the triptych, the church's choir and apse, outlined by what appear to be receding converging colonnades, might have been perceived as a continuation of the actual choir in St. Walburgis in which the triptych would have been mounted.

Although the triptych's presentation of the Host - the white wafer reserved in the monstrance mounted on the raised altar at the back of the center panel - lacks the focus or clarity of the same motif in Raphael's fresco, it is nonetheless the symbolic locus of the drawing and, by extension, of both the original program for the high altar of St. Walburgis [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 10 OMITTED] and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Furthermore, the Host represents Christ in a vertical configuration of the Trinity: this includes the Holy Spirit (indicated by the dove at the top of the center panel, just above the fictive altar) and God (whose image was to have been introduced in the program at St. Walburgis in the gable located in the upper register of the altarpiece's frame, as it appears in [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 10 OMITTED]).(25) In its presentation of the Trinity surrounded by angels or putti, as well as its symmetrical arrangement of figures to either side of an altar set against an architectural backdrop, the triptych resembles Rubens's Gonzaga Family Adoring the Holy Trinity (1604-5, now partially destroyed, Museo del Palazzo Ducale, Mantua), the center canvas from his earlier tripartite program for the Cappella Maggiore in the former Jesuit church in Mantua.

The Host's central role in the triptych (and, consequently, in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament) is further underscored by groups of figures introduced before and behind the altar. In the foreground of its center panel are the four Fathers of the Western Church, with Saints Augustine and Ambrose on the left and Saints Gregory the Great and Jerome on the right. Although the bearded figure who stands to the fight of Ambrose in the drawings (and in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, Figs. 3 and 11, where he wears a black robe) has been tentatively identified as Saint Paul,(26) the "inventor" of the Eucharist, I will argue below that he more likely represents Moses. The identification of the bearded figure is an important point: if it can be shown to be Moses rather than Paul, the patron of the Antwerp Dominican Church, this would be a significant indication that the triptych originally may have been intended for another site.

Standing around the altar are clusters of figures that were given greater definition in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. On the stairs just below the altar is an arrangement of books and scrolls that was omitted in the first version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (recorded in Hendrik Snyers's engraving of 1643, [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 11 OMITTED]),(27) and that was partially restored in the current version of the work [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED], which dates from Anton Goubau's extension and restoration of the panel in 1680;(28) both stages are presented, in sequence, in the diagram [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 8 OMITTED]. The wings that are mounted to either side of the triptych's center panel, as shown in the drawings, contain depictions of four saints - with Amandus and Walburgis on the left, and Eligius and Catherine of Alexandria on the right. This arrangement, which is consistent with the introduction of saints in earlier Flemish triptychs, recalls the program of Rubens's last Roman commission, the second version of the altarpiece that he painted for the Chiesa Nuova (S. Maria in Vallicella), which also includes a center panel flanked by detached side panels that portray saints associated with the early history of the church [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 12 OMITTED].

That the triptych represents a coherent program (rather than the creative or fictive combination of unrelated panels) is initially indicated by the equal height and the complementary proportions of the three modelli: as depicted by de Bisschop, the width of each wing measures half that of the center panel - just as one would expect in an actual triptych. This is shown with particular clarity in the Burchard drawing [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED] where a vertical line appears in the middle of the center panel, just at that point where the wings would meet when the altarpiece was in the closed position.

From a formal perspective, the authenticity of the program is demonstrated by the compositional congruity of the three joined modelli: they are visually connected by a series of horizontal axes, generated by the repetition or continuation of similar motifs, on the same level. One of these axes occurs in the upper register where putti of the same type and scale hold open books (in the center panel) or reach down to crown the female saints (in the wings). Another horizontal axis is established by the repetition of the monumental figures of the Church Fathers and the saints at about the same distance from the picture plane, and by their isocephalic presentation (in which their heads appear on the same level), a characteristic of Rubens's works from this period. The unification of the eight figures is underscored by the orientation of the saints, who all turn inward toward the center panel, and particularly by Walburgis, in the left panel, who appears to gaze at the monstrance, located in the center panel, that is mounted at her eye level. Walburgis's attitude recalls that of Gregory the Great (left wing, center) and Saint Domitilla (right wing, center) in Rubens's second program for the Chiesa Nuova altar [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 12 OMITTED]: depicted on separate slate panels, these figures both look up toward the image of the Vallicella Madonna and Child depicted in the panel above the altar. The unity of the Church Fathers and saints in the triptych recorded by de Bisschop is given greater emphasis by their similar scale and figure types: they are all conceived in the elongated proportions typical of Rubens's figures of about 1608-9, and they are presented in voluminous robes with analogous styles of drapery. The exuberant modeling of the robes in both drawings [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 5, 6 OMITTED] alerts us to the accentuation and consistent illumination of the Church Fathers and saints by the light that enters the triptych from the upper right.

The triptych's third horizontal axis is that created by the stairs, which extend across the base of all three panels. The continuous sweep of the upper tread - along with the shaded riser on which it rests - is clearer in the Vienna drawing [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 6 OMITTED]. Here, the top step appears in the left wing beneath Amandus's foot and then continues into the center panel; it passes behind Ambrose, only to emerge to the left of the foreground display of books and scrolls and then to disappear behind it; the step reemerges beneath Jerome and continues into the right wing, where it supports Eligius and Catherine. The second step, which is marginally indicated at the lower edge of the drawing, provides a foundation for Ambrose and the large open volume in the center foreground. A similar depiction of the steps appears in the drawing owned by Burchard [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED]; however, the definition of the steps in the center panel is significantly less clear than in the Vienna version. While the steps in the triptych's center panel were retained in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, they are expressed differently in the original [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 11 OMITTED] and final [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED] versions. The steps in the wings of the triptych, which are even more clearly indicated in the Dulwich modelli [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 7 OMITTED], were replaced in the depiction of the four saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED] with socles mounted on antique plinths.

The iconology of the triptych also supports the claim that it represents a coherent program. The prominence of the Church Fathers and the four saints, all of whom were active from the fourth through the eighth centuries,(29) is consistent with renewed interest in the early Church during the Post-Tridentine period. Not only did the biographies and writings of these figures afford evidence of the continuity of faith and practice,(30) but legends of their courageous confrontations with those who opposed the Church and its teachings also provided inspirational models for contemporary clergy facing analogous heretical challenges.(31) In this respect the Church Fathers and saints can once more be compared to Rubens's presentation of Gregory and a group of early Roman saints in his second commission for the Chiesa Nuova [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 12 OMITTED], or to his portrayal of early indigenous saints (such as Saints Bavo or Livinius) in his later Flemish altarpieces. They also recall the Church Fathers and saints (regional and otherwise) in Rubens's programs for the ceiling of the Antwerp Jesuit Church (ca. 1620) and, especially, for The Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry series (1627-28) that he designed at the request of the Archduchess Isabella.

That all eight of the figures in the foreground of the triptych were revered during the Post-Tridentine period for their defense of the Church and its teachings unifies them as a group and underscores the topicality of the altarpiece's iconology in light of the campaign against heresy that was launched in the Spanish Netherlands at the beginning of the Twelve Years Truce.(32) At this point heretical beliefs were perceived by the archdukes and their advisers as a challenge not only to the Church but also to the State. If the charges of religious dissenters threatened to undermine the policy of "one country, one faith" that was the cornerstone of the archdukes' statecraft,(33) from a slightly different perspective these assaults also threatened to disrupt a fragile political and social unity in what was for all purposes a new country, with a strong need to define (or redefine) itself, a process in which religion and the institution of the Church were to play a central role.(34) Nowhere in the Spanish Netherlands was the threat of religious dissent more strongly felt than in Antwerp, a city with a proud heritage of confronting heresy that had only recently emerged from the political and religious conflicts of the second half of the sixteenth century as a newly refigured bastion of orthodox Catholicism facing out on Protestant northern Europe.(35)

Although the biographies of the Church Fathers provide extensive evidence of their encounters with those who opposed the Church in the centuries immediately following its foundation, the history of the struggle against heresy in Antwerp (as well as the concurrent campaign to eradicate it in both the city, and the diocese of Antwerp) indicates a more specific rationale for the inclusion of the Antwerp saints (Amandus, Eligius, and Walburgis) in the program of the original altarpiece [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 10 OMITTED] for St. Walburgis: in local iconographic traditions, these three figures were synonymous with the introduction of Christianity into the pagan enclave of the Scheldt basin - and thus with the origins of the future city of Antwerp as a center of orthodox faith.(36) The local characterization of the Antwerp saints as missionaries also provided a useful historical precedent for religious orders involved in effecting conversions or in winning back lapsed Catholics living in the diocese's rural parishes. Although Catherine's inclusion in this program depends on another local iconographic tradition in which she was paired with Walburgis, her presence is nonetheless appropriate: just as were the Church Fathers and the Antwerp saints, she was revered during the Post-Tridentine period for her role in the conversion of nonbelievers.

While the four saints, unlike the four Church Fathers, were not actually involved in the formulation or explication of dogma, like the Church Fathers they were active in its promulgation and defense. The distinction between the common goals but different roles of the Church Fathers and the saints is effectively underscored by the altarpiece's tripartite structure. If all eight of the foreground figures are formally combined in the triptych's unified presentation, the relegation of the saints to the wings, where they are further distanced from the center panel by tentative architectural settings (suggesting arcades, like those in the backgrounds of the Dulwich sketches, and that retained in the underpainting of the right exterior panel of The Raising of the Cross) and by heavy drapery (like the curtain held aside by the putto in the left wing), establishes a subtle but clear distinction between their status and that of the Church Fathers in the center panel. This arrangement is analogous to the distribution of the figures in the Gonzaga program, which dates some four or five years earlier, where the adult members of the family kneel to either side of the altar in the center of the work while their progeny and patron saints are relegated to the flanking arcades (again, resembling those in the Dulwich sketches and apparently in the underpainting of the right exterior panel of The Raising of the Cross). It also recalls the similar arrangement of the later St. Ildefonso Altarpiece (1631-32, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), in which the Archdukes Albert and Isabella and their patron saints appear in the wings, in an architectural setting, once again suggesting an arcade, defined by monumental columns and voluminous drapery.

It is not incidental for the iconology of the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 10 OMITTED], or for that of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The Raising of the Cross, that the Flemish Church's campaign against heresy was intended to confront what was perceived as the most serious manifestation of opposition to the Church - the denial of Christ's corporeal presence in the Holy Sacrament. In most cases these challenges were directed against the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the core of the sacrament of the Eucharist, which recognizes the actual conversion of the …