Rubenianum lecture by Maarten Bassens

In January 2011 Sotheby’s in New York sold a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens that had long been assumed to have been lost. Over the centuries, the composition of this drawing served as a source of inspiration to diverse engravers and artists. However, Rubens’s own written commission to Paulus van Halmale was never actually carried out.

The portrait of the Antwerp city magistrate Paulus van Halmale was included inter alia in Anthony van Dyck’s Iconography, without any reference to his love of the arts. Yet the attentive viewer will come across his name on numerous 17th-century engravings and drawings.

In this Rubenianum lecture, the researcher Maarten Bassens took a close look at this art lover, providing a brief account of his life on the basis of new research findings. The focus in this lecture was on Van Halmale himself and on the society and collectors‘ circles of early 17th-century Antwerp.

The lecture was held in Dutch.

With the support of Fonds Inbev-Baillet Latour.