5 Examination of the Harvard sheet with infrared light has confirmed this division of labor, revealing the integral and specific underdrawing that guided the unidentified draftsman who elaborated Rubens’s design (Fig.
4 The systematic pen work of these studies bears little resemblance to the technique of secure drawings by Rubens from the 1630s, and some authorities have proposed that it is not by him, but by an assistant charged with completing the image over the master’s black-chalk sketch. The models for the heads of Nero, Brutus, and Seneca in the series were delineated in brown ink over black chalk with profuse curved, parallel, and cross-hatched strokes. However, the bust represented in the Harvard work was probably not ancient, but a Renaissance forgery based on numismatic portraits of Nero, and the attribution of the drawing to Rubens must be qualified.
2 A text engraved beneath each image credits Rubens with drawing the model ex marmore antiquo (from an antique marble). 1 The series reproduced “antique sculptures of certified portraits” in order to establish a reliable iconography of a dozen illustrious figures of the ancient world. Head of Nero was the model for an engraving by Paulus Pontius published in 1638 in a set of twelve plates that depict herms and busts of famous Greek and Roman men (Fig. 1740, lower right), sold to Pierre François Basan, Paris. Inscription: mount, verso, lower right, graphite: 6 / GA Inscription: mount, verso, upper right, graphite: Cabinet L'empereur. Inscription: mount, verso, upper center, brown ink: No. Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish (Siegen, Westphalia 1577 - 1640 Antwerp, Belgium)īrown ink, black chalk, scratchwork at the proper left eye and nose, on cream antique laid paper, mounted down, two brown ink framing linesĬollector's mark: lower right, black ink, stamp: L.
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