(Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
The Drunken Silenus,
oil on panel, 72.5 x 58.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, London, 8 July 2011, lot 90a;
where acquired by the present owner

The present painting executed in Rubens’ workshop depicts an intoxicated Silenus in three-quarter profile being supported by a characteristic retinue of animated satyrs. The work closely relates to the monumental panel conserved in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 319), first painted by Rubens (circa 1618), before later being enlarged and reworked by the master during the mid-1620s. The composition was repeated again in another version painted in Rubens’ workshop and is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel (inv. no. GK 94).

In the present composition key distinctive differences and omissions are included that diverge from the two aforementioned panels. For example, the present Silenus is the only version to feature the man drinking from the glass in full left-side profile, the appearance of a satyr on the right, the absence of the old lady on the left, and the exclusion of the hand pinching Silenus. Significantly, for an understanding of the present painting, is the historic fact that the Munich panel, neither the first nor the later enlarged version, ever left Rubens’ studio and was in the artist’s possession at the time of his death. Both the subsequent workshop panel in Kassel and the present painting would have been difficult to copy so loyally to the Munich panel’s original form, without both panels being produced in the workshop at the same time.

The existence of an etching of the Drunken Silenus by Jonas Suyderhoef based on drawings he had done whilst working in Rubens studio, further alludes to a link between the three paintings (Rijksmuseum, inv. no. RP-P-OB-60.654). Rubens’ most prominent student Anthony van Dyck signed a personal variant of the composition, preserved in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, (inv. no. 1017) and produced alongside several drawings. The latter even produced a version further removed from the prototype by his teacher with an Italianate approach, conserved in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels, (inv. no. 217).