Adoration of the Magi (Rubens)

Peter Paul Rubens painted the Adoration of the Magi (Matthew 2:1ff) more often than any other episode from the life of Christ.^[1] The subject offered the Counter-Reformation artist the chance to depict the richest worldly panoply, rich textiles, exotic turbans and other incidents, with a range of human types caught up in a dramatic action that expressed the humbling of the world before the Church, embodied in Madonna and child. The most notable include:

• Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Madrid), 1609, reworked 1628-29
• Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Cambridge), c.1616-17
• Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Lyon), c.1617-18
• Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Antwerp), 1624

References

1. ↑ Hans Devisscher, Peter Paul Rubens: Aanbidding der Koningen (1992) noted ten versions of the theme and Michael Jaffé, Rubens: Catalogo completo (Milan, 1989) fifteen.