Palazzo Rubens. The Master as Architect

Peter Paul Rubens (15771640) was an exceptionally versatile artist. Not only was he the most important painter of his time, but he was involved in extraordinary building projects in Antwerp, the best known of which is his own house. In 1610 Rubens bought a house with grounds on the Wapper, near the Meir, Antwerps most elegant street. It was thoroughly rebuilt to his own design and extended to include a painters studio,
a semicircular sculpture gallery and a garden screen and pavilion. In this new design Rubens revealed his artistic ideals: classical antiquity and the art of the Italian Renaissance. His renovated and extended house soon became a top attraction in Antwerp, for Rubens had given it the aura of a true palazzo. Rubenss architectural activities were inspired by such great painter-architects as Michelangelo and Giulio Romano, and by Italian architectural treatises. Rubens himself published a book on architecture, intended to pass on the examples he had encountered in Italy. Many of his paintings reveal his connoisseurship of both antique and contemporary architecture. Palazzo Rubens. The Master as Architect presents around sixty books, prints and paintings. For the first time, paintings by the master himself are shown alongside works by Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens,
together with costly architectural books from Rubenss own library.