Getty Museum
Study for Balthazar
Creator
Peter Paul RubensFlemish Artist · 1577–1640
All works by this person →International diplomat, savvy businessman, devout Catholic, fluent in six languages, an intellectual who counted Europe's finest scholars among his friends, Peter Paul Rubens was always first a painter. Few artists have been capable of transforming such a vast variety of influences into a style utterly new and original. After study with local Antwerp painters, Rubens began finding his style in Ita
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1609–1611
- Medium
- Oil, on paper laid down on panel
- Culture
- Flemish
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 644bfce9-afa9-4a8c-8ae5-44237f4243d2
Before Rubens completed a large-scale painting The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado; 1609, repainted 1628–29), he made this oil sketch to establish the expression of Balthazar, the Black African king in the scene. Balthazar’s sidelong look, his partly open mouth, and the careful modeling of the face and elaborately draped turban create a powerful, lifelike presence. Current scholarship suggests Rubens relied on an unidentified Black servant or enslaved person in Antwerp to help envision the biblical character. As such, the portrayal carries with it complicated stories about power, faith, and race in seventeenth-century Europe.
The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.