From 21 October 2014 to 25 January 2015, the Royal Fine Arts Museums of Belgium will be home to the silver ewer of Peter Paul Rubens, to mark the re-hanging of sketches and works on panel by Rubens in the Museums’ collections.

This monumental silver ensemble, comprising a large basin and ewer, was made c.1635-36 by the famous Antwerp silversmith Theodoor I Rogiers. These unique pieces would have belonged to Nicolas, the second son of Pierre Paul Rubens, and perhaps even to the master himself. In 1999, in an act of immense generosity, Sir Pierre and Lady Pierre Bauchau decided to purchase the works with a view to donating them to the King Baudouin Foundation.

Presenting these masterpieces in silver at the MRBAB enables them to be seen alongside the works of the master himself, in particular with the twelve painted sketches that Rubens made to decorate the Torre de la Parada, the hunting lodge belonging to King Philip IV of Spain, near Madrid. Exhibiting the sketches and the silverware in close proximity is particularly interesting because they date from the same period (1636-1638). The sketches show subjects from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, whilst the ewer and basin are decorated with scenes, among others, taken from classic antiquity. The belly of the ewer shows the Birth of Venus, which also appears on one of the painted sketches.

The ewer and basin have been entrusted to the Rubens House in Antwerp but, in accordance with the donors’ wishes, they are regularly exhibited in other Belgian museums.