Shown to the general public for the first time at Brafa’13, the De Ganay manuscript was entrusted to the Centrum Rubenianum in Antwerp, where a more in-depth study of the work could be conducted. This particular copy, made in the 17th century, will be the subject of the next volume of the Corpus Rubenianum to be published in 2014. This catalogue raisonné for the works of Peter Paul Rubens is due to be completed in 2020, a deadline that represents both an objective and a challenge for the Rubenianum Fund, created within the King Baudouin Foundation.
Research on the manuscript is almost finished and to mark the occasion, the Rubens House has organized the exhibition “Rubens tegendraads. Het theoretische notitieboek van de meester” (Rubens going against the grain. The master’s theoretical notebook). The Rubens House has also been able to secure the loan of three other copies of the notebook. The visitor to the exhibition will thus have a unique opportunity to compare the manuscript with the three other variants of the document, the original of which was destroyed in a fire at Charles Boulle’s studio in 1720.

The exhibition enables visitors to discover some surprising ideas held by Rubens, notably those relating to the anatomy and proportions of the human body, symmetry and perspective.

On until 19 January 2014.