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P.P. Rubens, Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628.
P.P. Rubens, Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
Left: P.P. Rubens Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628, detail. The x-ray (right) shows a later overpainted putto.
Left: P.P. Rubens Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628, detail. The x-ray (right) shows a later overpainted putto. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
The Berlin Modello “Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints” during the XRF-scanning in the KMSKA, Antwerp.
The Berlin Modello “Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints” during the XRF-scanning in the KMSKA, Antwerp. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
Left: P.P. Rubens, Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628, detail. Right: XRF-scan with the distribution of copper in contour lines of the first draft.
Left: P.P. Rubens, Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628, detail. Right: XRF-scan with the distribution of copper in contour lines of the first draft. Left: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. Right: © Loewie Vercruysse, University of Antwerp
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Rubens‘ Modello Mary and the Child Enthroned with Saints and its role in the masters creativ process

From 2023 to 2025, the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp examined and restored his monumental altarpiece Enthroned Madonna with Saints by Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens created numerous preparatory drawings and oil sketches for this important commission, including the Berlin Modello. The aim of the research project is both the comprehensive art-technological examination of this oil sketch and its positioning in the complex development and creative process of the Antwerp altarpiece.

Between 1625 and 1628, Rubens created a series of initial sketches on paper for this important commission and further developed his pictorial idea in several preserved oil sketches. The Berlin Modello, already showing the overall composition of the altarpiece, represents the final step in the preparatory process and thus plays a special role in this series.

The in-depth art-technological analyses of the oil sketch were supplemented by an X-ray fluorescence scan (XRF scan), carried out in cooperation with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (KMSKA) and the University of Antwerp. The results provide new insights into the working methods of the artist, who continuously developed his composition during the painting process, taking up models and correcting himself time and again. This process concerns both individual figures and groups of figures in the oil sketch as well as fundamental compositional changes on the way to the final, large-format version of the painting. Rubens' complex creative process can thus not only be traced by comparing all the preserved sketches, but can now also fully analyzed for the first time within the painting process of the Berlin modello itself.

  • planned for 2026

Objectives and outcomes: Examination of the Berlin Modello by Peter Paul Rubens and contextualisation of the painting within the pictorial genesis of the altarpiece Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (KMSKA); special presentation of the Berlin Modello in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
Project overseen by: Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Lead researchers: Dr. Katja Kleinert (Curator of the Netherlandish Painting of the 17th Century at the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Sandra Stelzig (Conservator at the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)
Project participants: Koen Buelckens, KMSKA, Loewie Vercruysse, Arches and Axis research groups (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Co-operation partner: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen and the Universiteit Antwerpen; the XRF scan was made possible by “Studio Rubens at the KMSKA”
Project duration: 2023 to 2025

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