Thursday 18 October 2018

"Audience with the pope" is copy after Rubens' "The four church fathers"

DVC, from Belgium, sells on 27 October 2018 a "17th / 18th century" "Audience with the Pope", estimated at 1,000 to 2,000 Euro.

While the painting clearly contains a pope and others, it would be a very strange "audience" with a semi-nude man, a lion, a dove and some putti.


It is a depiction of the 4 main Roman Catholic church fathers, Saint Ambrose (with the beehive), pope Gregory the Great (with a dove), Saint Augustine (with the bleeding heart), and Saint Jerome (with the lion). The original painting was by Rubens (lost? I couldn't find an image or location for it), but it is known through copies, including a painting by Jacob Jordaens (RKD) and an engraving by Cornelis Galle (Rijksmuseum).

This a rather rare work, some other paintings by Rubens have been copied much more often, and because of its art historical importance (and relative quality) it should easily fetch the estimate.

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