Golden Age
Jan Brueghel the Younger and Circle ofPeter Paul Rubens(Antwerp 1601 – 1678 Antwerp)

ca. 1625
oil on panel
38 x 59.2 cm
JB-100How to cite
Rahusen, Henriette. “Golden Age” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/satyrs-nymphs-putti-and-leopards-ina-landscape/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 2 of 7

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

Comparative Figures

a nymph who reaches for the grapes in his hands. Two small boys in thecenter 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 the satyr’sgesture—teases the central leopard with another bunch of grapes. The playfulinteractions between the mythological figures, the children, and the leopards
project a world of harmonious coexistence evocative of the mythologicalGolden Age. Popularized in western Europe by Ovid’s Metamorphoses(written in 7 A.D.), the Golden Age was celebrated for being the only one ofmankind’s four ages in which nature and reason were in perfect harmonyand humans were inherently good: “The Golden Age was first; when Man,
yet new, no rule but uncorrupted Reason knew: And, with a native bent, didgood pursue. Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear.”[1]Ovid’s Metamorphoses provided Dutch and Flemish artists with an almost

Fig 1. After Maarten de Vos, Panet Syrinx, 1787, etching andengraving, 41.6 x 29.9 cm, TheBritish Museum, inv.
1855,0609.490, © Trustees of theBritish Museum

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 inspiredby Ovid, painted various images of the Golden Age, including Nymph andSatyr with Leopards, ca. 1618, a large canvas that he sold to Sir DudleyCarleton as part of an exchange for the latter’s collection of antiquities.[2] The
identification of this composition as an allegory of the Golden Age wasalready noted in 1793, when Rubens’s original painting—or another versionof it—was in the collection of the Duc d’Orleans (fig 1).[3]Fig 2. Jan Brueghel theElder, Sight and Smell (detail), ca.
1620, oil on canvas, 176 x 264 cm,Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv.
P01403

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 a greater
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 has
been trimmed at the top.[4]The Leiden Collection painting is the result of collaboration between at least
two artists. The three stunningly lifelike leopards and the landscape may wellFig 3. Jan Brueghel the Elder andPeter Paul Rubens, The Garden ofEden with the Fall of Man, ca.
1617, oil on panel, 74.3 x 114.7
cm, Royal Pictures Gallery
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 253

be the work of Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601–78). The leopards are basedon models found in the paintings of his father Jan Brueghel the Elder© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 3 of 7(1568–1625), which, in turn, were based on animal studies by Rubens. The
central leopard, for example, is found in the famous Garden of Eden with theFall of Man, ca. 1615, which Jan the Elder painted in collaboration withRubens (fig 3). The head-butting leopard on the left appears in Jan theElder’s vivid depiction of The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark, 1613 (fig4). The nymph, satyr, and the two boys were executed by a different hand,presumably someone trained in Rubens’s workshop. When this painting
entered the Leiden Collection in 2005, these figures were attributed to Jan
Boeckhorst (1604–68), but his figures have a very different character thanFig 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

those in this work.[5] The broadly executed landscape may have been
painted by an entirely different artist. Both Rubens and Jan Brueghel theElder 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

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 4 of 7

Endnotes

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 the plough/ And unprovok’d, did fruitful stores allow: / Content with food, which Nature freely bred / Onwildings and on strawberries [mankind] fed; / Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest / Andfalling 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 a capable
specialist in this field.” See Julius S. Held. “Rubens’s Leopards—A Milestone in the Portrayalof Wild Animals,” 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 Royal Academy of Arts inLondon, the Leiden Collection painting was attributed to Peter Paul Rubens. On 1 June 1990,
it was sold at Sotheby’s New York as a work by Jan Brueghel the Elder.
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 Great Rooms,
late the Royal Academy, No. 125, Pall Mall, April 1793 (London, 1793), 18. The Orleanscomposition 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 of Wild 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,’ 25February. . . . [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 by Dr.
Klaus Ertz, who dated the painting ca. 1626 and assigned authorship of the figures toBoeckhorst.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 5 of 7

Provenance
The Honorable Mrs. Saumarez, Coddenham, Suffolk, by 1953, as by Peter Paul Rubens.[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 theYounger 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 of Art
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.

VersionsVersions 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 by Maerten deVos.

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

4. After Peter Paul Rubens, Leopards with a Satyr and Nymph, oil on panel, 48.7 x 64.2 cm,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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Golden Age
Page 6 of 7panel, 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 inscribedas “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. From Galerie du Palais Royal:
gravée d’après les tableaux des differentes ecoles qui la composent: avec un abrégé de lavie des peintres & une description historique de chaque tableau par M.r l’Abbé de Fontenai…,
3 vols. (Paris, 1786–1808).

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
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.
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Golden Age
Page 7 of 7

Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2020 The Leiden Collection