Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings

A magnificent selection of drawings by one of the greatest artists of the seventeenth century, for the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), drawing was a fundamental activity. Ranging from delightful renderings of children and elegant portraits of noblemen and women to vigorous animal studies and beautiful landscapes, Rubens's drawings are renowned for their superb quality and variety.

This exquisite book presents—in beautiful full-color reproductions—more than one hundred of the finest and most representative of Rubens's drawings, from private and public collections around the world. Essays by Anne-Marie Logan and Michiel C. Plomp provide overviews of Rubens's career as a draftsman and of the dispersal of his drawings among collectors after his death. The authors discuss the various functions of Rubens's drawings as preparatory studies for paintings, sculpture, architecture, prints, and book illustrations. The volume also includes a sampling of the artists early anatomical studies and copies after antique sculpture as well as several sheets by other artists that Rubens retouched, restored, or reworked.

This publication accompanies an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (January 14 to April 3, 2005)—the most comprehensive exhibition of Rubens's drawings ever held in the United States.