Famous work · not an exact-location map point
Self-Portrait in a Circle of Friends in Mantua
The young Rubens with a group of learned friends at Mantua, where he spent eight years in the service of the Gonzaga dukes.
No single real-world viewpoint
A group portrait; the coordinate is the whole city of Mantua, not a depicted view.
Self-Portrait in a Circle of Friends in Mantua — at a glance
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)
- Year
- c. 1602–1605
- Movement
- Flemish Baroque (Italian years)
- Place
- Mantua, Italy — Rubens's humanist circle at the Gonzaga court
- Viewpoint
- A group portrait with no descriptive setting — tied to Mantua by the people and the moment
- Medium
- Oil on canvas (cut down after an 18th-c. fire)
- Dimensions
- c. 78 × 101 cm
- Now at
- Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne
Overview
This group portrait by the young Peter Paul Rubens, painted about 1602–05, shows six men clustered close together, half-length, looking out or towards each other; Rubens himself is at the upper left, the only one meeting the viewer's eye. It was made during the eight years (1600–08) he spent in Italy in the service of the Gonzaga court at Mantua. It is oil on canvas, about 78 by 101 cm, and it hangs in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne — cut down from a larger original that was damaged by fire in the eighteenth century.
Where was Self-Portrait in a Circle of Friends in Mantua painted?
Scholarship Rubens served Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and lived mainly in that north-Italian city, moving in a circle of scholars, diplomats and fellow artists that included his brother Philip. The figures in the portrait are identified as members of that Mantuan humanist circle. The painting has no descriptive setting — a plain dark ground and a hint of landscape or column — so it is tied to Mantua by the people and the moment rather than by a depicted place. Mantua's Gonzaga palace, the Palazzo Ducale, survives as a museum.
What is in the painting?
Six bearded men in dark clothes and white ruffs or collars are packed into a tight group, overlapping. Rubens, youthful, curly-haired, is at the top left, turned to the viewer. The others incline towards one another as if in conversation; a suggestion of an evening sky or a rock behind. The mood is intimate, the handling warm and Venetian in colour, showing what Rubens had learned from Titian.
Look closely
Rubens at the top left
Youthful and curly-haired, turned out to meet the viewer — the only one who does.
The overlapping group
Six bearded men in dark clothes packed into a tight, bonded pyramid, inclining towards one another.
The Venetian colour
Warm, rich tones learned from Titian during Rubens's Italian years.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A tightly bunched cluster of half-length figures, linked by glance and gesture, with the artist alone addressing the viewer.
Scholarship Rubens compresses the friends into an overlapping pyramid so they read as a bonded group, and singles himself out by eye contact. The rich, warm colouring reflects his close study of Venetian painting during the Mantua years.
History & provenance
The painting, reduced in size after a fire, is in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne.
Sources
- Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne — collection entry for Peter Paul Rubens, ‘Self-Portrait in a Circle of Friends from Mantua’ (c. 1602–05)
- Kristin Lohse Belkin, ‘Rubens’ (Phaidon)
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