RKD STUDIES

1610s; oak panel, 33.5 x 46.6 cm, excluding a probable addition of 2 cm at the bottom

PROVENANCE
Bourgeois Bequest, 1811; Britton 1813, p. 22, no. 217 (‘Drawing Room / no. 5; Venus & Cupid – the latter making a fire – P[anel] Rubens’; 2'2" x 1'10").

REFERENCES
Cat. 1817, p. 10, no. 172 (‘SECOND ROOM – East side; Venus and Cupid; Rubens’); Haydon 1817, p. 387, no. 172;¹ Cat. 1820, p. 10, no. 172 (Venus and Cupid; Rubens); Cat. 1830, p. 9, no. 170; Jameson 1842, ii, p. 470, no. 170 (Rubens?); Clarke 1842, no. 170 (‘an unsightly picture’); Denning 1858 and 1859, no. 170 (Venus and Cupid. A Sketch); Lavice 1867, p. 181 (Rubens no. 10);² Sparkes 1876, p. 151, no. 170 (Rubens); Richter & Sparkes 1880, p. 144, no. 170 (under ‘In the style of Rubens by his scholars or imitators’);³ Rooses 1886–92, iii (1890), p. 186 (studio of Rubens);⁴ Richter & Sparkes 1892 and 1905, p. 43, no. 165 (school of Rubens); Cook 1914, p. 102, no. 165; Cook 1926, p. 96; Cat. 1953, p. 35; Müller Hofstede 1967a, p. 117 (note 12); Müller Hofstede 1967c, pp. 430 (fig. 1), 431–2 (Rubens); Murray 1980a, p. 116 (attributed to Rubens); Murray 1980b, p. 25; Bodart 1985, p. 159, no. 142a; Beresford 1998, p. 215 (Follower of Rubens); Trnek 1989, p. 210 (Rubens); Trnek 2000, p. 44, under no. 7 (Related works, no. 1 [1]; Rubens); Widauer 2004a, pp. 230–31, under no. 36 (Related works, no. 1); Trnek in Kräftner, Seipel & Trnek 2005, p. 92, under no. 19 (Related works, no. 1); Tyers 2014, pp. 31–3; Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, pp. 206, 215; RKD, no. 294908: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/294908 (Aug. 7, 2019).

EXHIBITIONS
Atlanta/Denver/Seattle 2007–8, pp. 38 (fig.), 261, no. 93 (A. Dumas; Follower of Peter Paul Rubens).

TECHNICAL NOTES
The painting is executed on a single eastern Baltic oak panel with horizontal grain and a very slight warp; there is a 17–19 mm (possibly later) addition at the bottom. Dendrochronology indicates that this board derived from a tree that was felled between 1608 and c. 1617. A repaired horizontal crack can be seen in the top right. The reverse is painted and bears an inscription, ‘№ 8’, which is more clearly visible in UV. The background is painted in thin transparent glazes, which have been rather abraded in some places; the thinness and transparency of the paint layers, in the background and elsewhere, allows the brown underdrawing to show through in places. The flesh areas show some signs of retouched wear. It has been suggested that the ‘crude execution’ of the Cupid indicates that this figure was painted by another hand, although an X-ray of the painting shows no difference in the preparation of that area. Previous recorded treatment: 1953–5, conserved, Dr Hell; 1980, cleaned, losses filled, split mended, retouched, varnished, National Maritime Museum, C. Hampton.

RELATED WORKS
1a) (Prime version?) Peter Paul Rubens, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (Without Ceres and Bacchus Venus would freeze, or Freezing Venus), c. 1614, panel, 51.5 x 79 cm. Gemäldegalerie der Akademie, Vienna, A 13 [1].⁵
1b) Rooses records another picture in the De Bom collection in 1878, perhaps identical with one in the Weustenberg collection, Berlin.⁶
2a) (Pendant?) Peter Paul Rubens, Crescetis Amores (Loves will grow) (Venus nursing Cupids), signed and dated 1616 and other inscriptions, pen and brown ink and wash and black chalk, with touches of black ink, heightened with white, on light brown paper, 246 by 179 mm. Private collection, Antwerp (Sotheby’s New York, 26 Jan. 2011, lot 585) [2].⁷
2b) (in reverse) Cornelis Galle II after 2a, Crescetis Amores (Loves will grow) (Venus nursing Cupids), 1627–8, inscriptions, engraving, 220 x 173 mm. BM, London, 1910,0208.9.⁸
3) Peter Paul Rubens, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, c. 1612–13, canvas, 140.5 x 200 cm. Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel, GK 85.⁹
4) Peter Paul Rubens, Jupiter and Callisto, signed and dated P. RVBENS.F.1613, panel, 126.5 x 187 cm. Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel, GK 86.¹⁰
5) Peter Paul Rubens, Venus Frigida, signed and dated P.P. RVBENS.F.1.6.1.4., panel, 145.1 x 185.6 cm. KMSK, Antwerp, 709 [3].¹¹
6) Peter Paul Rubens, Youthful and Fertile Love (Venus Frigida) (also Venus and Cupid in Vulcan’s Smithy), previously Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus; the left part of this picture is now in Dresden,¹² replaced by a scene with Vulcan, 1625–32, panel, 179.5 × 199.5 cm. KMSKB, Brussels, 1372.¹³
Compositions by other artists
7) Jan Saenredam after Abraham Bloemaert, Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would freeze), c. 1600, inscriptions in Latin, engraving on paper, 270 x 205 mm. BM, London, 1928,1212.116.¹⁴
8) Jan Harmensz. Muller after Bartolomaeus Spranger, Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, c. 1597, inscriptions, engraving, 510 x 358 mm. BM, London, 1853,0312.59 [4].¹⁵
9) Hendrick Goltzius, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, signed and dated 1599, oil grisaille on paper, 43.5 x 32.1 cm. BM, London, 1861,0810.14.¹⁶
10) Hendrick Goltzius, Jupiter and Antiope, dated 1612, canvas, 122 x 178 cm. NG, London (on loan from a private collection), L1098.¹⁷

DPG165 seems likely to be the modello for the somewhat larger picture in the Vienna Akademie (51.5 x 79 cm), which is in a much ‘harder’ style (Related works, no. 1a) [1]. There are some small differences, though less than is usual with Rubens’s modelli (see for instance DPG43, DPG40A–B, DPG451, where more major changes are apparent and which were used for much larger pictures). Cupid’s quiver is present in DPG165 but absent from the Vienna picture, and his arrow in the fire, visible in DPG165, is not recognizable as such in the Vienna picture. The form of the leaves of the trees in the landscape on the right has also been changed. The landscape seems to have been painted by a different artist. For the landscape in Vienna Renate Trnek suggested Jan Wildens and Heinz Widauer was reminded of Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), but they were not convinced by their own suggestions.¹⁸ DPG165 was in the inventory and catalogue as a Rubens since 1813, but Mrs Jameson questioned his authorship, and the debate has continued. In 1967 Müller Hofstede attributed the picture to Rubens again, but that has not been widely accepted.¹⁹ It was probably produced by a follower with a sound knowledge of Rubens’s methods and motifs, more apparent in the Dulwich sketch than the Vienna picture. Venus however seems to hover in the air in both: if they were by Rubens this would not be the case.²⁰ Her pose, seated with her legs overlapping, is somewhat similar to that of Callisto in the Rubens painting in Kassel, Jupiter and Callisto, of 1613 (Related works, no. 4). That shows Jupiter (disguised as Diana) and Callisto, one naked and the other half-naked, over life size. The same is true of another painting by Rubens in Kassel of about the same period, showing Bacchus, Cupid, and the two goddesses Ceres and Venus, Sine Cerere and Baccho friget Venus (‘Without Ceres and Bacchus Venus would freeze’; Related works, no. 3). There is a clear similarity to the life-size nude bodies of gods and goddesses in the paintings of Hendrick Goltzius, who Rubens had just visited in Haarlem in 1612 (see for instance the picture on loan to the National Gallery, London: Jupiter and Antiope, Related works, no. 10), and those of another Haarlem master, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562–1638), who painted pictures of this type earlier, in the 1580s (see NG1893). Cornelis Cornelisz. could have seen such compositions in the works of Frans Floris I (1515/20–70) and Michiel Coxie I (1497/1501–85) in Antwerp, where he was in 1581–3, and Rubens himself could have seen them there.

A print after a Rubens drawing, with Venus nursing small cupids under the title Crescetis Amores (Loves will grow; Related works, nos 2a–b) [2], has been proposed to show a pair to the Vienna painting: in both compositions Venus is seated under a rosebush, facing in opposite directions in the two, and in both cases she has an unnaturally narrow neck.²¹

The picture’s iconography is of the ‘Venus frigida’, a theme derived from a saying recorded by the 2nd-century BC Roman dramatist Terence (The Eunuch, 732), that Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, meaning that without the company of Ceres (goddess of agriculture and fertility) and Liber or Bacchus (god of wine), Venus and Cupid will grow cold and have to keep warm by making a fire as shown here. It implies that love can only flourish with food and wine. Since the end of the 16th century this was a popular theme in the Netherlands,²² in both texts and images.²³ In texts the message was mainly negative, but in images the harmony between the gods and goddesses was emphasized. Usually all four were depicted, Ceres, Bacchus, Venus and Cupid, as in the print by Jan Saenredam after Abraham Bloemaert (1566–1651) and the drawing by Hendrick Goltzius (Related works, nos 7 and 9), and in Rubens’s picture in Kassel (Related works, no. 3). A print by Jan Harmensz. Muller after Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611) shows Ceres and Bacchus walking away, hand in hand, leaving Venus and Cupid to keep themselves warm, as they try to do with a fire (Related works, no. 8) [4]. It seems that Rubens has singled out this scene in the background, with Venus and Cupid by a fire. He chose it as a subject at least twice – in the 1614 picture in Antwerp, called Venus frigida (Related works, no. 5) [3], and in the painting of which DPG165 is the modello, if Rubens was indeed the author.

DPG165
follower of Peter Paul Rubens
Venus and Cupid warming themselves (Venus frigida), 1610-1620
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG165

1
Peter Paul Rubens
Venus Frigida, c. 1614
Vienna, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, inv./cat.nr. A 13

2
Peter Paul Rubens
Venus nursing the cupids, dated April 1616
Private collection

3
Peter Paul Rubens
Venus Frigida, 1614 dated
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, inv./cat.nr. 709

4
Jan Harmensz. Muller after Bartholomeus Spranger
Without Bacchus and Ceres, Venus grows cold, c. 1597
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. 1853,0312.59