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THE SHOW EXPLORES THE CRUCIAL ROLE DRAWING PLAYED IN THE ART OF
PETER PAUL RUBENS, ANTHONY VAN DYCK, AND JACOB JORDAENS

Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens

January 19 to April 29, 2018

00000morgan.jpg
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Seated Male Youth, ca.1613, black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on light
gray paper, purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909, The Morgan Library & Museum, I, 232. Photography
by Steven H. Crossot, 2014.

New York, NY, December 14, 2017 — In a letter from
September 13, 1621, describing a large painting of a lion
hunt that he had just completed, Peter Paul Rubens
expressed what he believed to be essential to his art: it had
to be powerful and graceful. A constant quest to achieve an
equilibrium of these two qualities lay at the heart of his work.
The same can be said of Anthony van Dyck and Jacob
Jordaens, who studied with Rubens and whose lives and
careers were entwined with—and influenced by—the senior
artist.

A new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, Power
and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and
Jordaens, brings together an extraordinary selection of
twenty-two works on paper by these three giants of Flemish
Baroque art, demonstrating the crucial role the medium of
drawing played in their individual practice and highlighting
their graphic styles. The show, which includes work from the
Morgan’s collection supplemented with a small number of
loans, will be on view from January 19 through April 29, 2018.

“The Morgan is particularly well-suited to tell the fascinating story of the intersection of these three artists
in works on paper,” said Colin B. Bailey, director of the Morgan Library & Museum. “Its collection of
drawings by Rubens, van Dyck, and Jordaens is unparalleled in the United States. Rubens, the teacher,
cast a long shadow on all who studied with him. Nevertheless, van Dyck and Jordaens, while
acknowledging their debt to Rubens, would develop their own characteristic techniques and become
renowned masters in their own right.”

# Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)
Of the three artists in the show, Rubens was the most prolific and versatile draftsman. His output includes
compositional studies, designs for book illustrations and architecture, portrait drawings, figure studies,
and retouched drawings. He also created numerous copies after older masters, such as the exhibited
sheet with motifs from a 1576 Bible with woodcuts by 
Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584), which he drew as a
teenager. Throughout his life, Rubens remained
deeply invested in the art of past generations.
While he was in Italy in 1600-8, he developed a keen
interest in human anatomy after encountering the
drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, the work of
Michelangelo, and ancient sculpture. Seeking to
understand the human form in order to create credible
figures in his work, Rubens made many anatomical
drawings and kept them in his so-called annotomibock
(anatomy book). One such drawing, an écorché study
of the buttocks and legs of a man (with the skin
removed to reveal the musculature), is probably based
on a small sculpture that Rubens could pick up and
illustrate from different vantage points.

Rubens also drew nude studies from live models, a
practice he would teach to van Dyck and Jordaens in
the period of ca. 1617-20 when they were both at work
in his studio. His Seated Male Youth—a tour de force
in his drawn oeuvre—is a study for the figure of Daniel
in the celebrated painting Daniel in the Lions’ Den (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), An Ecorché Study of the
Legs of a Male Nude, with a Subsidiary Study of the Right
Leg, ca. 1600–1605, pen and brown ink, The Kasper
Collection of Drawings and Photographs.
likely drew this formidable figure from a live model. At the same time, the pose is so close to a drawing by
Girolamo Muziano, which Rubens likely owned, that Rubens may have used it as a template for posing
his model. This drawing demonstrates Rubens’s conviction that art should always respond to older art,
but ultimately also be based on observations taken from nature.

# Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)
The Morgan’s rich holdings of van Dyck drawings
include works from nearly every phase of his
career. As a young artist, van Dyck often made
many drawings to work out his compositions,
each time moving away from the examples set by
other artists, Rubens in particular. A wonderful
early example is his Mystic Marriage of St.
Catherine (ca. 1618-20), which was executed
during the time he worked in Rubens’s studio,
one of seven compositional drawings he made
for a majestic painting that today hangs at the
Prado in Madrid.

Like Rubens, Van Dyck was also deeply
influenced by the example of earlier art. The
virtuoso sheet with two studies for Diana and
Endymion (ca. 1625-27) displays a profound
influence of Italian models, including a fresco by
Annibale Carracci and several antique
sculptures, suggesting that it dates from van
Dyck’s Italian sojourn of ca. 1621-27.


As an experienced artist later in his career, van Dyck felt less need to work out his compositions in
multiple drawings. He did sometimes make studies for elements in his paintings, such as the Morgan’s
Study for the Dead Christ (ca. 1635–40), a preparatory drawing for his late painting Lamentation of Christ
(ca. 1635–40). Here, van Dyck revisited the method he had practiced in Rubens’s studio of drawing from
the nude model in order to achieve the realistic rendering of the human body and the light reflections on
the flesh.

# Jacob Jordaens (1503–1678)
Although Jordaens never traveled to Italy, he avidly took to
heart Rubens’s insights about the importance of studying
ancient art, in particular muscular antique sculpture. A
recently discovered drawing, Study of a Male Nude Seen
from Behind (ca. 1617–20), created from a live model while
Jordaens was working in Rubens’s workshop,
demonstrates how he also learned from Rubens to observe
the human body from life. Jordaens took great care to
depict the complex muscle structure of the burly man’s
back, combining strong highlights in white chalk with
perfectly placed accents in red and black chalk.
Jordaens would often create head studies from life to aid
the production of his large, multi-figure paintings of merry
scenes and religious narratives. He used his spirited drawing of a Mother and Child, for which he used his
wife and daughter as models, in the impressive King Drinks of 1638-40 (Musée du Louvre, Paris).
After Rubens’s death in 1640, and that of van Dyck in 1641, Jordaens became the most productive and
highly sought artist in Antwerp. Throughout his long career, compositional drawings were an essential
part of his creative process, which was fueled by his contact with the physical sheet of paper. In a design
for his 1663 painting (Landesmuseum, Mainz), Jordaens portrayed the twelve-year-old Christ in
conversation with the elders of the Temple in Christ Among the Doctors (ca. 1663). He prepared this
study with a complicated technique that included an underdrawing in charcoal, reinforced contours in
black chalk, and different layers of watercolor and opaque watercolor. Unlike most artists, Jordaens used
this elaborate combination of media not for independent, but for working drawings. 


# Publication
A fully illustrated catalogue with an introductory essay and entries on the exhibited works from the
Morgan’s collection will accompany the exhibition: Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck,
and Jordaens.
Author: Ilona van Tuinen
Publisher: The Morgan Library & Museum, in Association with Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2018.
108 pages.

# CONCERTS Boston Early Music Festival: Flanders Recorder Quartet
Cécile Kempenaers (soprano)
A Song for All Seasons—Instrumental Music and Songs from the Renaissance
For three decades the virtuoso instrumentalists of the Flanders Recorder Quartet have
earned a peerless reputation for brilliant clarity, technical perfection, and sensitive
musicianship, and in late 2018 they will perform their final concerts. Join these
exceptional musicians and soprano Cécile Kempenaers during their farewell year for a
program featuring music by Byrd, Dowland, Parsons, Giamberti, de la Rue, and others.
Thursday, February 22, 7:30 pm* (7 pm pre-concert talk)
Tickets: $45; $35 for members.
*The exhibitions Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens and Now and
Forever: The Art of Medieval Time will be open at 6:30 pm for concert attendees.
Flanders Festival

Join us for an evening celebration! John Snauwaert, saxophone, Nilson Matta, bass, and
George Dulin, piano, perform smooth samba, swing, and a homage to jazz legend Toots
Thielemans in Gilbert Court. Enjoy Belgian food and drink in the Morgan Café, and see
amazing art in the exhibition Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, &
Jordaens.
Friday, March 23, 6–8:30 pm
Tickets: No tickets or reservations required. Food and drink available for purchase.
Free with Museum admission 6–7 pm; Free 7–8:30 pm.

# DISCUSSION Power and Grace: Notes on an Exhibition
Ilona van Tuinen, Annette and Oscar de la Renta Assistant Curator, Drawings and Prints
Drawings played a central role in the artistic practice of the three giants of the Flemish
Baroque: Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), and Jacob
Jordaens (1593–1678). Join Ilona van Tuinen, curator of the exhibition Power and Grace:
Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens, for a discussion of the spectacular works
on display and the story behind the show.
Friday, January 19, 12 pm*
Tickets: $15; free for members and students with a valid ID. Tickets include free
admission for the day of the program.
*The exhibition Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens will be open for
program attendees.

# LECTURE Power and Grace: Ecumenical Rubens
David Freedberg

Rubens was a great and varied draughtsman. One could call him ecumenical in his
extraordinary stylistic range and his engagement with the work of his predecessors and
his contemporaries. But Rubens was also a politician and diplomat, who worked towards
the reconciliation of religious and political difference. In this lecture, David Freedberg,
Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art at Columbia University and Director of the
Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, will demonstrate how the drawings in
the exhibition Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens reveal
not just his artistic virtuosity, but his efforts to seek peace in his time.
Wednesday, March 7, 6:30 pm*
Tickets: $15; $10 for members; free for students with a valid ID.
*The exhibition Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens will be
open at 5:30 pm for program attendees.
ADULT Drawing Power and Grace: Live Model Drawing Workshop

# WORKSHOP
Following a tour of the exhibition, Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and
Jordaens, attendees will return to the studio classroom for a short demonstration of select
techniques employed in the masterworks on display. Working from a live costumed
model participants will then create their own work using a variety of provided materials,
including red and black chalk, toned paper and white gouache.
Friday, February 2, 6–8 pm
Tickets: $45, $35 for members.
Organization and Sponsorship
Power and Grace: Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens is organized by the Morgan Library &
Museum, New York. The curator of the exhibition is Ilona van Tuinen, Annette and Oscar de la Renta
Assistant Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, the Morgan Library & Museum.
This exhibition is made possible with generous support from The General Delegation of the Government
of Flanders to the USA, Mr. and Mrs. Clement C. Moore II, and the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw
Charitable Trust.
The programs of the Morgan Library & Museum are made possible with public funds from