The Virgin and Child with Sts. Elizabeth and John the Baptist
Oil
WallArt
Baroque
1634
Early Modern
1395.0 x 1800.0 cm
Walker Art Gallery
Workshop Of Peter Paul Rubens (? – ?)
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was a Flemish Baroque master renowned for his dynamic compositions, rich colors, and sensual depictions of mythology, religion, and history. His influential workshop produced countless paintings that shaped European art.
Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool, United Kingdom)
Home to one of the world's finest Pre-Raphaelite collections, Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery offers an unmissable journey through Renaissance masters and British modernism that invites you to explore its timeless beauty.
Rubens painted this devotional image when he was at the peak of his artistic, diplomatic and domestic career: elected chief of Antwerp’s painters, recently knighted by Britain’s Charles I and Spain’s Philip IV and happily remarried. Rubens originally included a figure of St Joseph, hunched next to the column behind Christ’s head, but painted it out in order to focus attention on the Virgin’s head. Antwerp was renowned for its cult of Mary and Rubens was a particularly devout follower. The change heightened the painting’s message of human and divine love conveyed through a continuous movement of gestures and glances between the Virgin, St Elizabeth and their respective sons. St John’s lamb, a symbol of Christ’s future sacrifice, looks out at us and encourages our thought and contemplation of the image and its message.
About this artwork
- Title: The Virgin and Child with Sts. Elizabeth and John the Baptist
- Artist: Workshop Of Peter Paul Rubens
- Year: 1634
- Original dimensions: 1395.0 x 1800.0 cm
- Format: Portrait
- Copyright status: Under copyright
- Where to see it: Walker Art Gallery
- Medium: Oil
- Medium type: WallArt
- Corpus context: peak of artistic career , cult of mary