(Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine
oil on panel, 73 x 53.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Eertijds, Cercle Artistique, Antwerp, 10th November 1924, lot 85 (as workshop of Peter Paul Rubens);
Alphonse Cols (1864–1947) Collection, Antwerp (1935)
sale Christie’s, London, 25th March 1977, lot 111

Exhibited:
Antwerpsche Propagandaweken Schilderkunst, April – May 1935 (according to a label on the reverse, as Peter Paul Rubens?)

Literature:
J.-P. de Bruyn, Werk van Erasmus II Quellinus verkeerdelijk toegeschreven an P. P. Rubens, in: Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerp, Antwerp, 1977, pp. 291–323, fig. 29 (as Erasmus Quellinus);
J.-P. de Bruyn, Erasmus II Quellinus (1607–1678), De Schilderijen met catalogue raisonné, Freren, 1988, p. 30, cat. no. 29, p. 52, fig. 29 (as Erasmus Quellinus);
H. Vlieghe, Nicht Jan Boeckhorst, sondern Jan van den Hoecke, in: Westfalen, 68, 1990, p. 174, fig. 18 (as Jan van den Hoecke, with the support erroneously indicated as canvas);
D. Bieneck, Gerard Seghers 1591–1651, Lingen, 1992, p. 52, cat. no. 29 (as workshop of Rubens and/or Quellinus)

The present painting is an interesting work from the period of the Antwerp High Baroque. In 1924 the picture was identified as a product of Rubens’ workshop. In the meantime scholars have made several attempts to assign individual works from the long list of hitherto unidentified works by the hand of Rubens’ students to specific collaborators. This is not an easy task, since the artists working in Rubens’ studio in the 1630s naturally practiced a style that was not very personal and closely relied on that of their master.

In his essay Werk van Erasmus II Quellinus verkeerdelijk toegeschreven an P. P. Rubens (see literature), De Bruyn tried as early as 1977 to isolate the oeuvre of Erasmus Quellinus from the group of workshop products and published the present painting as a work by Quellinus – an opinion he upheld in his catalogue raisonné published in 1988 and which he still believes to be correct. If van Dyck had been Rubens’ most important student and workshop collaborator during the master’s early period, Erasmus Quellinus was his most prominent student and assistant during his late years. After the master’s death, Quellinus succeeded him in his position as Antwerp town painter. Like probably no other artist, he personified his teacher’s elegant, opulent, and expressive manner of painting at the zenith of the Antwerp Baroque.

Hans Vlieghe, on the other hand, who also contributed substantially to the effort to differentiate between the hands of Rubens’s pupils, in his 1990 essay Nicht Jan Boeckhorst, sondern van den Hoecke (see literature), assigned the present painting to Jan van den Hoecke, and he still considers it to be an autograph work by this student and collaborator of Rubens.

Quellinus is mentioned as a student of Rubens as early as 1649, and a document from 1634 identifies him as a “disciple” in the master’s workshop. Jan van den Hoecke, an artist that has recently been intensively studied by Hans Vlieghe, is also mentioned as a pupil of Rubens at an early date. His share in the workshop’s output can indeed be more distinctly recognised thanks to Vlieghe’s research (see A. Balis, Rubens and His Studio – Defining the Problem, in: J. van der Auwera, Rubens, L’atelier du génie: autour des oeuvres du maître aux Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 2007, pp. 46 and 51).

Dorothea Bieneck published the painting in 1992 in her monograph on Seghers. She mentions the work’s origins in Rubens’ workshop and likewise considers an attribution to Quellinus plausible.

Provenance:
sale, Eertijds, Cercle Artistique, Antwerp, 10 November 1924, lot 85 (as workshop of Peter Paul Rubens);
Alphonse Cols (1864–1947) Collection, Antwerp (1935)
sale Christie’s, London, 25th March 1977, lot 111

Exhibited:
Antwerpsche Propagandaweken Schilderkunst, April – May 1935 (according to a label on the reverse, as Peter Paul Rubens?)

Literature:
J.-P. de Bruyn, Werk van Erasmus II Quellinus verkeerdelijk toegeschreven an P. P. Rubens, in: Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerp, Antwerp, 1977, pp. 291–323, fig. 29 (as Erasmus Quellinus);
J.-P. de Bruyn, Erasmus II Quellinus (1607–1678), De Schilderijen met catalogue raisonné, Freren, 1988, p. 30, cat. no. 29, p. 52, fig. 29 (as Erasmus Quellinus);
H. Vlieghe, Nicht Jan Boeckhorst, sondern Jan van den Hoecke, in: Westfalen, 68, 1990, p. 174, fig. 18 (as Jan van den Hoecke, with the support erroneously indicated as canvas);
D. Bieneck, Gerard Seghers 1591–1651, Lingen, 1992, p. 52, cat. no. 29 (as workshop of Rubens and/or Quellinus)

The present painting is an interesting work from the period of the Antwerp High Baroque. In 1924 the picture was identified as a product of Rubens’ workshop. In the meantime scholars have made several attempts to assign individual works from the long list of hitherto unidentified works by the hand of Rubens’ students to specific collaborators. This is not an easy task, since the artists working in Rubens’ studio in the 1630s naturally practiced a style that was not very personal and closely relied on that of their master.

In his essay Werk van Erasmus II Quellinus verkeerdelijk toegeschreven an P. P. Rubens (see literature), De Bruyn tried as early as 1977 to isolate the oeuvre of Erasmus Quellinus from the group of workshop products and published the present painting as a work by Quellinus – an opinion he upheld in his catalogue raisonné published in 1988 and which he still believes to be correct. If van Dyck had been Rubens’ most important student and workshop collaborator during the master’s early period, Erasmus Quellinus was his most prominent student and assistant during his late years. After the master’s death, Quellinus succeeded him in his position as Antwerp town painter. Like probably no other artist, he personified his teacher’s elegant, opulent, and expressive manner of painting at the zenith of the Antwerp Baroque.

Hans Vlieghe, on the other hand, who also contributed substantially to the effort to differentiate between the hands of Rubens’s pupils, in his 1990 essay Nicht Jan Boeckhorst, sondern van den Hoecke (see literature), assigned the present painting to Jan van den Hoecke, and he still considers it to be an autograph work by this student and collaborator of Rubens.

Quellinus is mentioned as a student of Rubens as early as 1649, and a document from 1634 identifies him as a “disciple” in the master’s workshop. Jan van den Hoecke, an artist that has recently been intensively studied by Hans Vlieghe, is also mentioned as a pupil of Rubens at an early date. His share in the workshop’s output can indeed be more distinctly recognised thanks to Vlieghe’s research (see A. Balis, Rubens and His Studio – Defining the Problem, in: J. van der Auwera, Rubens, L’atelier du génie: autour des oeuvres du maître aux Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 2007, pp. 46 and 51).

Dorothea Bieneck published the painting in 1992 in her monograph on Seghers. She mentions the work’s origins in Rubens’ workshop and likewise considers an attribution to Quellinus plausible.