Golden Ageca. 1625

Jan Brueghel the Younger and Circle of Peteroil on panel

Paul Rubens

38 x 59.2 cm
JB-100How To CiteRahusen, Henriette. "Golden Age." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive,
and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions areadded only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 2 of 7

In an idyllic scene at the edge of a forest, a satyr teasingly backs away

Comparative Figuresfrom a nymph who reaches for the grapes in his hands. Two small boys in
the center of the triangular composition romp blithely with three majestic
leopards. Resting an arm on the neck of one of the beasts, the boy at theright gestures toward the nymph while the second boy—echoing thesatyr’s gesture—teases the central leopard with another bunch of grapes.
The playful interactions between the mythological figures, the children, andthe leopards project a world of harmonious coexistence evocative of the
mythological Golden Age. Popularized in western Europe by Ovid’sMetamorphoses (written in 7 A.D.), the Golden Age was celebrated forbeing the only one of mankind’s four ages in which nature and reason
were in perfect harmony and humans were inherently good: “The GoldenAge was first; when Man, yet new, no rule but uncorrupted Reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue. Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’dby fear.”[1]Fig 1. After Maarten de Vos, Panet Syrinx, 1787, etching andengraving, 41.6 x 29.9 cm, The
British Museum, inv.
1855,0609.490, © Trustees of theBritish Museum

Ovid’s Metamorphoses provided Dutch and Flemish artists with an almost
endless source of subjects for history paintings, but none more than PeterPaul Rubens (1577–1640). Combining the lives of gods, goddesses, andmythological creatures with the observed natural world around him,
Rubens’s realistic depictions of animals brought Greek mythology into anaturalistic setting that the viewer could understand. Rubens, largely
inspired by Ovid, painted various images of the Golden Age, including
Nymph and Satyr with Leopards , ca. 1618, a large canvas that he sold to
Sir Dudley Carleton as part of an exchange for the latter’s collection ofantiquities.[2] The identification of this composition as an allegory of theGolden Age was already noted in 1793, when Rubens’s originalFig 2. Jan Brueghel theElder, Sight and Smell (detail),ca. 1620, oil on canvas, 176 x 264
cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid,inv. P01403

painting—or another version of it—was in the collection of the Ducd’Orleans (fig 1).[3]The Leiden Collection panel is a reduced copy of that composition.
Rubens’s composition is seen hanging on a wall in Jan Brueghel theElder’s Allegory of Sight and Smell , ca. 1620, in the Prado (fig 2). The
Prado work indicates that Rubens’s composition had more foliage and agreater expanse of sky above the satyr’s head than the copy in the Leiden
Collection, and a technical examination has revealed that the latter panel

Fig 3. Jan Brueghel the Elder andPeter Paul Rubens, The Gardenof Eden with the Fall of Man, ca.
1617, oil on panel, 74.3 x 114.7
cm, Royal Pictures Gallery
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 253

has been trimmed at the top.[4]The Leiden Collection painting is the result of collaboration between at© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 3 of 7

least two artists. The three stunningly lifelike leopards and the landscape
may well be the work of Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601–78). The
leopards are based on models found in the paintings of his father Jan
Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), which, in turn, were based on animalstudies by Rubens. The central leopard, for example, is found in thefamous Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man , ca. 1615, which Jan theElder painted in collaboration with Rubens (fig 3). The head-butting
leopard on the left appears in Jan the Elder’s vivid depiction ofThe Entryof the Animals into Noah’s Ark , 1613 (fig 4). The nymph, satyr, and theFig 4. Jan Brueghel the Elder,
The Entry of the Animals into
Noah’s Ark, 1613, oil on panel,
54.61 x 83.82 cm, The J. Paul
Getty Museum, Los Angeles, inv.
92.PB.82

two boys were executed by a different hand, presumably someone trainedin Rubens’s workshop. When this painting entered the Leiden Collection in
2005, these figures were attributed to Jan Boeckhorst (1604–68), but hisfigures have a very different character than those in this work.[5] The
broadly executed landscape may have been painted by an entirely
different artist. Both Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder had large
workshops that reproduced replicas of the masters’ works, and identifying
individual hands in such paintings has proven to be extremely difficult.
-Henriette Rahusen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 4 of 7Endnotes
1. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Sir Samuel Garth et al. (London, 1717), Book 1:89–93 and
107–16. The tree against which the satyr is pressed may stand for the tree of Jove, whichyielded its acorns in an era of unlimited plenty: “The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of theplough / And unprovok’d, did fruitful stores allow: / Content with food, which Nature freely
bred / On wildings and on strawberries [mankind] fed; / Cornels and bramble-berries gave
the rest / And falling acorns furnish’d out a feast!”
2. In 1618, Rubens sent Carleton a list of the paintings available in his studio, including thisdescription of the nine-by-eleven-foot composition: “Leopards done from nature, with satyrs
and nymphs, original by my hand except a beautiful landscape done by the hand of acapable specialist in this field.” See Julius S. Held. “Rubens’s Leopards—A Milestone in thePortrayal of Wild Animals,” in M: Quarterly Review of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 7,no. 3 (1975): 5. When planned for exhibition at the 1953 Winter Exhibition of the RoyalAcademy of Arts in London, the Leiden Collection painting was attributed to Peter PaulRubens. On 1 June 1990, it was sold at Sotheby’s New York as a work by Jan Brueghel theElder.
3. An exhibition catalogue of the Duc d’Orleans’s collection described Rubens’s composition
as “symbolical of the Golden Age.” The Orleans Gallery, now exhibiting, at the GreatRooms, late the Royal Academy, No. 125, Pall Mall, April 1793 (London, 1793), 18. The
Orleans composition was at that point attributed to Antwerp artist Martin de Vos(1532–1603). Quoted Julius S. Held. “Rubens’s Leopards—A Milestone in the Portrayal ofWild Animals” in M: Quarterly Review of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 7, no. 3 (1975):
7 n. 6.
The description of the Orleans Collection is taken from the curator’s comments on the British
Museum website for inv. 1837,0408.317: “From ‘Galerie du Palais Royal,’ a set reproducing
354 works from the collection of the Duke of Orléans, published by Jacques Couché . . . from1786 to 1808. The plates were issued by series of 6, every 3 months, and each of them wasaccompanied by a text, engraved on the same plate as the reproduction; the first six plates
were published on 15 February 1786 and advertised in ‘Affiches, Annonce et Avis divers,’
25 February. . . . [The Galerie du Palais Royal] is also sometimes referred to as ‘Galerie duPalais d’Orléans,’ or ‘Galerie du Duc d’Orléans.’”
4. Apart from this panel, several other workshop copies of the composition exist in a range ofsizes.
5. Auction catalogue, Koller Zurich, 21 September 2005, Sale A134, Lot 3042, with notes byDr. Klaus Ertz, who dated the painting ca. 1626 and assigned authorship of the figures toBoeckhorst.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 5 of 7

Provenance
The Honorable Mrs. Saumarez, Coddenham, Suffolk, by 1953, as by Peter Paul Rubens.1[1](Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 1 June 1990, as by Jan Brueghel the Younger).
Private collection (sale, Koller, Zurich, 21 September 2005, no. 3042, as by Jan Brueghel
the Younger and Jan Boeckhorst [Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam, 2005]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Provenance Notes

1. This provenance is based on a label affixed to the verso of the panel: “Royal Academy ofArt Winter Exhibition, 1953. Flemish Pictures. / Artist: Attrib. Rubens / Title: The Golden Age/ Name and Address of Owner: The Hon. Mrs. Saumarez, Shrubland Park, Codenham,Suffolk.” Sincere thanks to Andrew Potter, research assistant at the Royal Academy Library,
who communicated to Nicole Cook, curatorial assistant at the Leiden Collection, on 24 July
2014 that while records indicate that the painting was originally intended to be shown in the1953 Winter Exhibition, it was ultimately not included due to discrepancies over its transport.

Versions
Versions and Copies
1. After Peter Paul Rubens, The Leopards, oil on canvas, 255 x 317 cm, Montreal Museum ofFine Arts, inv. no. 1975.15, as by Rubens until 1992.

2. After Peter Paul Rubens, Nymph, Satyr, Two Children, and Playful Leopards in a
Landscape, oil on panel, 70 x 53 cm, Musée Jeanne-d’Aboville, La Fère, previously as byMaerten de Vos.

3. After Peter Paul Rubens, Leopards in a Landscape with a Nymph, a Satyr, and Two Putti ,oil on linen, 168.6 x 209.6 cm, current whereabouts unknown; sale, London, Christie’s, 4July 1991, no. 508.

4. After Peter Paul Rubens, Leopards with a Satyr and Nymph , oil on panel, 48.7 x 64.2 cm,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 6 of 7

current whereabouts unknown; sale, New York, Christie’s, 26 February 1997, no. 77.

5. Circle of Peter Paul Rubens, Eine Nymph emit Satyr, zwei Kindern und leoparden in einer
bewaldeten Flussandschaft, oil on wood, 48 x 64 cm, current whereabouts unknown; sale,Vienna, Dorotheum, 29 September 2004, no. 148.

6. Follower of Peter Paul Rubens, Leopards avec satyre et nymphe , tempera on vellum paid
on panel, 21 x 27.5 cm, current whereabouts unknown; sale, Paris, Ferri, 15 June 2007, no.
23.

Related Drawings and Prints
1. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77), Three Leopards and Two Boys, ca. 1640s, partial copy after
The Leopards by Rubens, etching, 14 x 21 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,Rogers Fund, 1920, 20.81.3.327.

2. Antoine Borel (1743–1810), copy after The Leopards by Rubens, ca. 1787, drawing,dimensions unknown, Paris, The Jacques Doucet Literary Library.

3. Charles-Nicolas Varin (1741–1812), copy after design by Antoine Borel, mistakenly
inscribed as “Pan et Syrinx” after a painting by Martin de Vos, 1787, etching and engraving,
41.6 x 29.9 cm, London, British Museum, inv. no. 1855,0609.490. FromGalerie du Palais
Royal: gravée d’après les tableaux des differentes ecoles qui la composent: avec unabrégé de la vie des peintres & une description historique de chaque tableau par M.rl’Abbé de Fontenai…, 3 vols. (Paris, 1786–1808).

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single, rectangular plank of horizontally grained oak, has bevels on all foursides.[1] The upper bevel is narrower than the others, and the satyr’s head appears to have been
cropped, which suggests the upper panel edge may have been trimmed. The panel is unthinned
and uncradled, and has no machine tool marks. Triangular wood inserts have been added to thelower left and upper left and right corners, and a narrow shim has been glued to the upper edge.
The panel has a paper label and a handwritten inscription, but no wax collection seals, importstamps, stencils or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied with parallel, diagonally oriented© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Golden AgePage 7 of 7

brushstrokes and extends onto the lower panel edge. The paint has been applied smoothly andopaquely. In the current format, the satyr’s head appears to be cropped by ca. 1 cm.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
Minor compositional changes noted in the images and X-radiograph include additional folds thatoriginally defined the nymph’s drapery.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2005 and remains
in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection