Wolf and Fox Hunt | Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop | All | European Paintings | Collection Database | Works of Art

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscribed (lower left): 1125

Gallery LabelBetween about 1615 and 1621 Rubens produced a series of monumental hunting scenes. A painting of a "Wolf and Fox Hunt" was sold by him to English diplomat Sir Dudley Carleton in 1617, and another seems to have been purchased by the Duke of Aershot. From a comparatively early time the present painting was in Spain, whence it was removed in 1814 by Joseph Bonaparte; it later passed to the collection of Lord Ashburton. A number of copies of it are known. A drawing by Rubens for part of the composition is at Chatsworth. Like many large paintings of its kind produced in Rubens's workshop, it was executed by a number of different hands. Scholars disagree as to the extent of Rubens's personal participation, some ascribing to him the animals in the foreground and the three heads of huntsmen in the center, and some denying him any share in the execution of the work. The landscape was added after the horses and animals were complete, and has been given conjecturally to Jan Wildens.

NotesThis large canvas was produced about 1615 with the help of workshop assistants and purchased by Philippe Charles d'Arenberg, duc d'Aarschot. Another version (measuring about 7 x 9 ft.) was produced for Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador at The Hague, and may well be the picture, generally considered a workshop replica, in the Methuen Collection at Corsham Court. The MMA Hunt was later owned by the marques de Leganés, who was in Rubens's opinion "among the greatest connoisseurs of this art in the world" and acquired at least seventeen of the master's paintings between 1630 and 1642. The MMA work is not listed in the inventory of 1630, but Leganés may have kept pictures in Brussels, where he was, like Aarschot, a member of the archducal court. Recent cleaning has made it clear that a large part of the Museum's picture was painted by Rubens himself, in particular the wolves that are the focus of attention. The landscape is the work of an assistant. The horse and rider at the left are adapted from Rubens's equestrian portrait of Giancarlo Doria of about 1606 (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence). The horse and rider to the right were derived from the so-called "Riding School" (destroyed 1945; formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin), which was painted in Rubens's studio about 1610–12. About 1615–16 Rubens painted a set of four Hunt canvases on the scale of the Museum's picture for Elector Maximilian of Bavaria, and there are some motifs that our picture shares with the "Wild Boar Hunt" (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles) from this set. An earlier idea for the mounted couple in the MMA work appears on the verso of a drawing at Windsor Castle. An engraving by Pieter Soutman of the MMA picture or a version of it must have been made about 1616. A number of copies of the composition are known [see Ref. Liedtke 1984].

ProvenancePhilippe Charles d'Arenberg, duc d'Aarschot (purchased from the artist; 1616/17–d. 1640; sold from his estate to Leganés); Diego Messía Felípez de Guzman, marques de Leganés, Madrid (1640/41– d. 1655; inv., 1642, no. 1126; inv., 1655, no. 1125); ?marqueses de Leganés (1655–1711); by descent to condes de Altamira, Madrid (1711–1816; sequestered by Joseph Bonaparte and taken to Paris, 1814–15); Vicente Isabel Osorio de Moscoso, 14th conde de Altamira, Madrid (1816–20; sold in Paris for Fr. 50,000 to Smith); [John Smith, London, 1820–24; sold for £2200 to Baring]; Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton, The Grange, Alresford, Hampshire (1824–d. 1848); his son, William Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton, The Grange (1848–d. 1864); his widow, Louisa, Lady Ashburton, Kent House, London (1864–d. 1903; her estate, 1903–at least 1907); [Sulley and Co., London, by 1908–10; sold to MMA]

Exhibition History

Paris. Musée Royal. "Tableaux des écoles primitives . . .," July 25–?, 1814, no. 102.

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1871, no. 110.

London. Grosvenor Gallery. "Works of Art Illustrative of and Connected with Sport," 1890, no. 32.

London. Sulley and Co.. 1908, no. ?

References

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George Gage. Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton. November 1, 1617 [published in Ref. Sainsbury 1859].

Toby Matthew. Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton. February 6, 1617 [published in Ref. Sainsbury 1859].

Toby Matthew. Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton. April 24, 1617 [published in Ref. Sainsbury 1859].

Inventory of the collection of Diego Messía Felípez de Guzmán, marques de Leganés. 1642, no. 1126 [Archivo Histórico de Protocolos, Madrid, leg. 6210, fol. 1186; see Ref. Balis 1986].

Inventory of the estate of Diego Messía Felípez de Guzmán, marques de Leganés. April 6, 1655, no. 1125 [published in Jose López Navío, "La gran colección de pinturas del Marqués de Leganés," n.d., p. 316].

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Arnout Balis. Letters to Walter Liedtke. February 1 and July 31, 1981.

"Wolf and Fox Hunt." National Sporting Library Newsletter no. 12 (June 1981), p. 3, ill.

Joseph J. Rishel in Richard Ormond. Sir Edwin Landseer. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 1981, pp. 26–27, fig. 27.

Walter A. Liedtke. "Flemish Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum—I: Rubens." Tableau 6 (November/December 1983), pp. 85, 87–88, fig. 13.

David Freedberg. "The Life of Christ after the Passion." Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. part 7, London, 1984, p. 128 n. 13, under no. 31.

Walter A. Liedtke. Flemish Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1984, vol. 1, pp. 198–209; vol. 2, colorpl. XV, pls. 77–78 (overall and detail).

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Kristi Nelson. Jacob Jordaens: Design for Tapestry. [Turnhout, Belgium], 1998, pp. 88, 180 n. 11, under no. 17.

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Alexander Vergara. Rubens and His Spanish Patrons. Cambridge, 1999, pp. 113–14, 136, 138, 171–72, 227 n. 2, p. 243 nn. 142, 147, fig. 50.

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Kristin Lohse Belkin in A House of Art: Rubens as Collector. Exh. cat., Rubenshuis, Antwerp. Schoten, Belgium, 2004, p. 320.

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