The Adoration of the Eucharist

Peter Paul Rubens

Period

1600-1650

Theme

Daily Life

Medium

Oil on panel

Current Location

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

The Story

The series’ patron, Spanish archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, is represented in a nun’s habit at the lower left to signify her piety and reinforce her status as an important patron of the arts in the ruling Habsburg family.

Working in Oil on panel at 31.5 × 32 cm (12 1/2 × 12 1/2 in.); Framed: 47.6 × 47.6 × 7 cm (18 3/4 × 18 3/4 × 2 3/4 in.), Peter Paul Rubens constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Scenes like this were prized precisely because they made ordinary labor and leisure worth painting at all.

Today the painting is held by Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Peter Paul Rubens's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”

From the museum

Peter Paul Rubens designed this elaborate oil sketch as part of a tapestry series intended for the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Rubens created two tiers of celebrants—the heavenly on the upper level and the earthly on the lower level—adoring the Eucharist, an important sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, which is lifted by two angels beneath a central arch. The series’ patron, Spanish archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, is represented in a nun’s habit at the lower left to signify her piety and reinforce her status as an important patron of the arts in the ruling Habsburg family.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

Materials & technique

Technique: painting, painting (image making), painting techniques, panel painting.

Provenance

Probably in the collection of the artist, Antwerp, until his death in 1640 and then included in a large lot of oil sketches in his estate sale, 1642 [Jeffrey M. Muller, “Oil-Sketches in Rubens’s Collection,” Burlington Magazine 117 (1975), pp. 374-75, and Held 1980, p. 11, argue that the oil sketches were disposed of in this way]. Probably Jean van Lancker, Antwerp; his estate sale, Antwerp, 23 May, 1769 and following days, lot 72, “Une belle Esquisse, un Sanctuaire au milieu de 4 petites pieces jointes ensemble, Rubens, B[ois], 13 x 12. Canon Pierre André Joseph Knyff, Antwerp (died 1784), his estate sale, Antwerp, J. Grange, 18 July 1785 and following days, lot 74, “Un Autel enrichi d’ornemens & de colonnes, sur lequel est, représentée l’Adoration de l’Eucharistie: à droite, on voit le Pape à genoux, qui offre de l’encens; il est accompagné de Diàcres, de Prêtres & de beaucoup d’autres figures; à gauches sont l’Empereur, un Roi, des Princes, & plusieurs autres personnes, qui adorent le Saint Sacrement, au-dessus duquel on apperçoit un grand nombre d’Anges qui jouent des instrumens. Dans cette belle esquisse bien terminée et bien coloriée, l’on remarque beaucoup de finesse & de vérité. 11 ½ x 11 3/4 . B[ois]”, to Giraud, according to annotated catalogue in the RKD, The Hague]. Dowdeswell Galleries, London, by 1914, when sold to Martin A. Ryerson [an invoice from Dowdeswell to Ryerson is dated June 23, 1914]; Martin A. Ryerson, Chicago (1856–1932), from 1914; by descent to his wife Carrie Hutchinson Ryerson (1859–1937), Chicago, 1932 [Last Will and Testament of Martin A. Ryerson, Died August 11, 1932, copy in Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1937.