Study for Balthazar
about 1609–1611
- Medium
- Oil, on paper laid down on panel
- Dimensions
- 54 × 47.3 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-135888
Before Rubens completed a large-scale painting The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado; 1609, repainted 1628–29), he made this oil sketch to establish the expression of Balthazar, the Black African king in the scene. Balthazar’s sidelong look, his partly open mouth, and the careful modeling of the face and elaborately draped turban create a powerful, lifelike presence. Current scholarship suggests Rubens relied on an unidentified Black servant or enslaved person in Antwerp to help envision the biblical character. As such, the portrayal carries with it complicated stories about power, faith, and race in seventeenth-century Europe.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Registry history
- about 1609–1611 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum
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