Property of the Carlos Amberes Foundation, the painting will remain in the museum until 2026
The Prado Museum adds to its collection of Pedro Pablo Rubens, temporarily until 2026, his painting ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’, a masterpiece from the artist’s later period, painted around 1636-1639, which is once again on display at the Prado more than three decades later. Owned by the Carlos Amberes Foundation, as its president has stated, its return to the museum is «an act of justice.»
«Depositing the Saint Andrew at the Prado is an act of justice given the importance of the work that now integrates into the set of other masterpieces by the author,» said the president of the Carlos de Amberes Foundation, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, in a press conference on Monday.
On the other hand, the Prado has emphasized that «the painting ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’ constitutes that kind of DNA, the backbone of our collection. An extremely important artist, one of the great artists in the history of European art, of whom the National Prado Museum treasures a total of 124 works of paintings and sculptures, of which a hundred are paintings,» as detailed by the deputy director of Conservation and Research, Alfonso Palacio, in room 16B of the Villanueva building, where the painting will be exhibited.
‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’ will be at the Prado until 2026 — when it is estimated that the architectural renovation works of the Carlos de Amberes Foundation headquarters will be completed — and it brings a «different» theme, the religious one, to the Rubens Workshop collection at the Prado.
According to Palacio, the Prado treasures many Rubens paintings with mythological or erotic themes, painted for King Philip IV, while ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’ is religious.
«There is a kind of unofficial division of tasks between Rubens and Velázquez, Rubens provides mythologies for the Spanish Court, and Velázquez is the painter who does portraits and is in charge of decorating the hall, for example, precisely in these thirties,» he stated.
Another characteristic of ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’ is its frame, as it retains the original one made by the cabinetmakers Abraham Lers and Julien Beymar, servants of Philip IV.
In fact, the frame of ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew’ is the only one exhibited by the Prado from the 17th century because, according to Palacio, almost all the paintings from this period — from 1600 to 1700 in the Royal Collection — were reframed in 1750 to give homogeneity to the collection, and frames very similar to the gilded ones seen in the Prado were used. «For us, it is very interesting when we find a trace of something we have lost,» he emphasized.
«A frame is a protection but also a dress that is put on a painting, we learn about the taste of the time by knowing the original frame when in a large collection like Rubens’ at the Prado, we do not have any other painting with the original frame,» as detailed.
In the same line, the president of the Royal Board of the National Prado Museum, Javier Solana, highlighted that it is «a painting framed in an extraordinary way.»
ORIGINS OF THE WORK
The origin of the painting begins when an agent in Madrid from the Plantiniana Printing Press of Antwerp named Jan van Vucht commissioned Rubens this canvas to decorate the main altar of the church of the Royal Hospital of Saint Andrew of the Flemish, where it was installed in 1639. Therefore, it is a work belonging to the final stage of the Flemish master’s production, carried out in the same years he was working on the project of the Torre de la Parada.
The hospital was founded on San Marcos Street in Madrid in 1606 fulfilling the will of the deceased Carlos de Amberes with the purpose of sheltering the poor and pilgrims from the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. A new church was built in 1621, the year of the reversion of the sovereignty of these provinces to Philip IV.
It is very likely that the commission of this canvas was related to the intention of attracting the celebration of Saint Andrew to this church, which was usually held at the Royal Chapel of the Habsburgs and was linked to the Order of the Golden Fleece, as he was the patron of the House of Burgundy and the states of Flanders.