June 28, 1577

The painter Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 to May 30, 1640) included a kitten in his painting "The Annunciation" (1628). This thumbnail excerpt focuses on a small corner of the painting.






His Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , focuses on Rubens' lesser known talents as a diplomat:

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By the mid-1620s Rubens had completed some of the most important commissions of his career. His wife and daughter had just died, leaving him with two young sons. It was at this time that the Archduchess Isabella engaged Rubens as her adviser and confidential agent to help bring about her wish (which he sincerely shared) to secure peace in the divided Netherlands. This marked the beginning of a five-year period of extensive travel for Rubens, at first on secret missions to the northern Netherlands, later on diplomatic trips to Madrid and London.

'In 1628, at Isabella's direction, Rubens travelled to Madrid to begin the talks that he hoped would lead to peace between Spain and England and ultimately see his beloved Netherlands united. In the following year Isabella's nephew Philip IV, king of Spain, named Rubens secretary of the privy council of the Netherlands and sent him off to London as an envoy laying the groundwork for an Anglo-Spanish armistice. Rubens's arrival in London was greeted by the art-loving Charles I with pleasure, by the anti-Spanish faction with suspicion. He had the benefit, however, of having established ongoing relationships with many English court collectors during the previous two decades.

'Sir Dudley Carleton, for instance, English ambassador to The Hague, showed interest in the great hunting pictures that Rubens produced between 1615 and 1621. In 1616 Toby Matthew, an Englishman living in Brussels who had been involved in buying works of art for Jacobean courtiers, and George Gage, a roving English agent often employed in buying artworks, visited Rubens on behalf of Carleton to acquire a hunting picture. Five years later Rubens produced Lion Hunt (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), for Sir John Digby, who intended to present it to the marquess of Hamilton.

'In 1620 Rubens had his first contact with the fourteenth earl of Arundel, when Arundel asked him to paint a portrait of the countess, Altheia Talbot, as she stopped in Antwerp en route for Venice. Rubens was in frequent contact over various artistic matters with Matthew, Gage, and Carleton in the coming years. In 1623 all were involved in negotiations with Rubens on behalf of Lord Danvers (who in turn was acting for Prince Charles), who had been keeper of St James's Palace from 1611 to 1618. Danvers had a specific request for a picture that he heard was already finished: Rubens's Self-Portrait (1623; Royal Collection), which hung first at St James's Palace and, later, in Charles I's bedchamber at Whitehall Palace.

'Rubens was in Paris in 1625 in order to install the Medici cycle in time for the wedding of the newly crowned King Charles I and the French princess Henrietta Maria. There he met George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham. Rubens remained in contact with Buckingham from this time until the latter's death, in 1628. Their special interests-both artistic and diplomatic-fired their relationship: Buckingham wanted to acquire works by Rubens and from his collection; Rubens wanted Buckingham's help to secure peace in Europe. It was probably before Buckingham and the new British queen departed for London that Rubens made a portrait drawing of Buckingham (Albertina, Vienna) and received commissions for a large allegorical equestrian portrait and a ceiling painting celebrating the duke for York House, his London residence.

'During Rubens's London sojourn Charles I commissioned him to paint nine ceiling canvases to adorn Inigo Jones's Palladian Banqueting House (1619-22), in Whitehall Palace, a project for which Rubens had lobbied ten years earlier. ....

'Rubens's letters from London suggest that, while he frequently met Charles I, they did not establish a rapport such as the painter had enjoyed with Philip IV in Madrid. There are no portraits by Rubens of Charles I. Rubens's letters give no indication that in his meetings with the English king pictures were ever discussed, though given their shared interests such asides to politics seem likely. Rubens had been instructed to offer a truce between England and Spain that would not involve the United Provinces. He encountered some difficulty in his initial meetings with Charles, who urged him to draw up a treaty to conclude peace, not simply to negotiate a truce. By September 1629 Rubens had completed negotiations with Charles for the exchange of ambassadors. In response to Rubens's request to return to Antwerp at this point the junta directed him to remain in London until the arrival of the Spanish ambassador. The success of his diplomatic mission was praised both in London and Madrid.

'The day before he set sail Rubens made one last attempt to secure peace in the Netherlands. He paid a surprise visit to the Dutch ambassador, Albert Joachimi. Given the imminent settlement of peace between Spain and England, Rubens suggested that it was a propitious moment to begin negotiations between the north and south Netherlands. He left disappointed, however, as Joachimi, feeling confident over the success of the United Provinces on the battlefield, refused to enter into any discussions concerning reunion unless the south joined the north to drive the Spaniards out.

'At the end of Rubens's nine-month stay in London, culminating in the successful agreement to exchange English and Spanish ambassadors, Charles I bestowed a knighthood on him. Before leaving in March 1630 he in turn presented Charles with a painted plea for peace, Minerva Protects Pax from Mars (Peace and War; National Gallery, London) and took with him as a record of his English sojourn his Landscape with Dragon (St George and the Princess; Royal Collection). In it Charles is shown as St George saving the princess, Henrietta Maria, in a velvety, mist-enshrouded blue and green landscape, with vague references to specific London buildings.

'Rubens's London mission was the last of the many visits that he made during three decades to the great courts of Europe. For Rubens the 1630s were devoted to painting and to his new wife, Helene Fourment (sixteen when he married her, on 6 December 1630), at home in Antwerp and at Het Steen, a country haven situated between Mechelen and Brussels. With Helene he spent the last ten years of his energetic life producing two more sons and three more daughters (the last born eight months after his death) and enjoying domestic tranquillity in the Flemish countryside. While he continued to receive commissions it is his mythologies and landscapes that show the marked influence of Helene's sensuality on the one hand and the lush fertility of nature on the other-distinctive features of this period.
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We see how his painting and diplomatic genius combined. In this busyness a sleeping kitten makes a soft counterpoint.