Whereabouts unknown; presumably loll.
3 3 .
TITLE-PAGE FOR J. HEMELAERS, IMPERATORUM ROMANORUM NUMISMATA AUREA.
Antwerp, 1615 (Fig. 114 )
Engraving; 1 7 1 : 128 mm.
Co p y e x a m i n e d: Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus Museum, No. A 3488.
Li t e r a t u r e: Basan, pp. 177, 178, No. 28; Smith, Catalogue Raisonné, 11, p. 338, No. 1300; V S ., p. 198, No. 32; C. Ruelens, Les amis de Rubens, Rubens-Bulletijn, 11, 1883, pp. 40, 4 1 ; Dutuit, VI, p. 216, No. 28; Rooses, v, pp. 49, 50, No. 1243, pi. 356; Rooses-Ruelens, 11, pp . 2 5-34 ; Van den Wijngaert, pp. 28, 29, No. 17 ; Bouchery- Van den Wijngaert, p p . 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 ; Evers, 1943, p p . 4 3 ,17 2 , 173, fig. 72.
The
IMPERATORVM ROMANORVM NVMiSMATA AVREA A
Julio Caesare ad Herac- lium is a book in-40 and was published in Antwerp in 16 15 by G. van Wols-schaten and H. Aertsens. It begins with a title-page not designed by Rubens. This is followed by sixty-four plates, each containing engraved illustrations of twelve coins, then an unilluStrated title-page immediately followed by Rubens’s. After that there are ten folios which include the Preface and the Dedication of the book to Duke Alexander de Croy. Next we have two hundred and thirty-three pages of learned commentary on the coins by Jan Hemelaers, Canon of the Antwerp Cathedral. Hemelaers was very likely commissioned by Charles de Croy to work on this before 1600 while the former was Still Studying with JuStus Lipsius in Louvain. After 1600, Hemelaers went to Rome for six years and around 1610 he was a member of the same scholarly group that Rubens frequented in Antwerp.1 The coins in the book all came from the collection of Charles de Croy, except for thirty-five pieces, owned, according to the Preface, by Nicolaas Rockox.
In his frontispiece Rubens places the goddess of money or the mint, Moneta —described as such in a letter of January 3, 16 11, from Nicolaas Rockox to Jacob de Bie (Appendix I, p. 429 [ 15 7 ] ) —in front of a rusticated niche, perhaps alluding to the mint which was, in ancient days, in Juno’s temple.2
Moneta Stands to the left of a wreath-enclosed oval containing the title of the book. In her right hand she holds a set of scales and in the other she supports an overflowing cornucopia. Juft beneath the scales in the bottom left, a hammer and a pair of pincers, referring to the activities of the mint, reft againft a ftone block while to the right of the oval column fragments fill the space below, above and to the side. A wall with sprouting foliage is to the right of the niche and behind the column fragments.
The idea of placing a large figure before or within a rufticated niche might well have come from Hubert Goltzius’s Thesavrvs Rei Antiqvariae Hvber-
rimvs, Antwerp, 1579, p. 219 (Fig. 115 ) , where an elongated and mannered
personification of Fertility Stands in a rufticated niche and holds a cornucopia upside down with coins pouring from it.3 However, Rubens’s figure, although posed with a similar curve to the body as in the 1579 publication, is not mannered but based upon a type found on antique coins. In antiquity Moneta is often seen in a similar frontal position with a pronounced hip-shot pose, head in profile, holding scales and a horn of plenty.4 Rubens has taken his basic idea from Roman coins and translated it into a piece of monumental antique sculpture like the so-called Niobid, now in the National Museum, Naples, but in Rome in the Villa Madama during the 16th and 17th centuries and later in the Borghese colleftion.5 Rubens used the same type of personification many years later in 1635 in his oil sketch for the Front Face of the Triumphal Arch
of the Mint, Antwerp, Museum.4 However, Moneta, placed above the arch
opening, is seated and Rubens includes the caduceus as an attribute of Mercury, the god of Commerce.
There is some queftion as to the engraver. In a letter of February 26, 16 11 (Appendix I, p, 430 [16 0 }), Rockox asks De Bie to decide whether he or Cornelis Galle should cut the plate. Jacob de Bie (Antwerp 1581 - France, ca. 1650) was an engraver, art dealer and a specialist in numismatics who worked in Antwerp, Arnhem and Paris.7 Because he was an engraver and very much involved with the publication of this book, it seems moft likely that he would have cut the plate for the frontispiece which sets the tone for the book.
The same frontispiece was used for the 1627 edition except for a small change in the book title.8
1 C. Ruelens, op. cit., p. 41.
* H. Mattingly, Roman Coins from the EarlieU Times to the Fall of the Wellern Empire,
London, i960, p. 11, note 1.
3 This type is found again on the back of the triumphal arch ereded in honour of the
entry of the Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand into Antwerp on April 17, 1635. Rubens’s
oil sketch for this arch is in the Hermitage, Leningrad (for documentation see
Martin, Pompa,pp. 156-158, No. 40a, fig. 74). This decorative scheme was later published
in a large commemorative volume in 1642 with an explanatory text by Caspar Gevartius
under the supervision of Theodore van Thulden and illustrated with engravings after
Rubens’s sketches (see below, No. 81).
4 See for example pi.
35Tin Hemelaers’s
16 15 Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata Aurea,where one finds a female holding the same attributes as on the frontispiece, but
her poSture is different. See also the billon "medallion” made during the reign of
Probus
(176 -2 8 2)or a coin from the time of Diocletian
(26 9-305);for illustrations
see
H.Mattingly,
op. cit., pis. x x ix , 6;LXiv,
4.In fad, the Diocletian type containing
three personifications of Moneta is found on page
15 7of the
1642 Pompa Introitus.3 For Marten van Heemskerck’s drawing of this sculpture see C. Hülsen and H. Egger,
Die römischen Skizzenbücher von Martin van Heemskerck im Königlichen Kupfer- Bichkabinett zu Berlin,
i, Berlin, 1913, pi. 35.
6 Martin, Pompa,
pp. 193-197, No. 50a, Fig. 101.
7 For Rubens’s business dealings with De Bie see below, p.
335,under Nos. 82-83.
* 172 : 129 mm.;
Hecquet,pp. 98, 99, No. 26; C. Ruelens,
op. cit.,pp. 41, 42;
Rooses,V, p.
50;
Van den Wijngaert, p.29, No.
17WS.3 3 a .
TITLE-PAGE FOR J . HEMELAERS, IMPERATORUM ROMANORUM NUMISMATA:DRAWING
Technique and measurements unknown. Whereabouts unknown; presumably loft.
The correspondence between Nicolaas Rockox and Jacob de Bie dating from January 3 and 22, February 1 1 and 26, 16 1 1 (Appendix I, pp. 429, 430 [15 7 - 160]), makes it clear that Rubens drew the frontispiece in that period. This date is further substantiated by Stylistic affinities between the figure in the title-page and Rubens’s work from around that time. His Moneta assumes the same pose as Honour in the ca. 16 12 drawing of Virtue and Honour, Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus, which is also based upon antique coins.1 Further similarities with Rubens’s work around 16 1 1 can be seen in the St. Martina on the right wing of the Resurrection triptych in the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp,2 the St. Catherine on the outside o f the right wing of The Raising
of the Cross in the same church3 or the Statue of Ceres in the Hermitage,
Leningrad.4
2
Bouchery-Van den Wijngaert, fig. 18.
3 J.R . Martin,
Rubens: The Antwerp Altarpieces. The Raising of the Cross and The
Descent from the Cross,
New York, 1969, fig. 10.4
KJ.K., p. 83.
34. CHRIST DEAD ON THE CROSS: ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MISSALE ROMANUM.
Antwerp, 1616, p. 268 (Fig. 116 )
Engraving; 297 : 196 mm.; margin.
C o p y
exam ined:
Amsterdam, University Library, No. xioo A 4.C o p ie s: ( i ) Engraving by C. G alle; lit.:
VS.,
p. 47, N o . 3 19 ; (2) Engraving inMissale
Ordinis Pratrum B. Mariae Virginis de Monte Camelo,
Antwerp, 1665, in-f°, p. 256; 297 : 194 mm.L i t e r a t u r e :
Hecquet, p. 107; Rooses, Rubens-Moretus, 1882-83, l> P- 2®1; n > P- 55»
Rooses, Rubens-Moretus,
1884,pp. 24, 50; Rooses, v, pp. 62, 64, No. 1261; Van den
Wijngaert, p. 37, No. 294 (13); Bouchery-Van den Wijngaert, p. 63; Evers,
1943,pp. 2x1, 212, fig. 153.
Christ, with His head falling down to His right, is nailed to the Cross. An angel flies in on the left and holds a cup which collects the blood flowing from the Saviour’s side. The angel is balanced on the right by the movement of the sun and moon which overlap. The Virgin, with hands clasped, looking up toward Christ and clothed with heavy drapery, Stands on the ground to the left of the Cross while St. John the Evangelist, with hands raised to his face, mourns on the right. Mary Magdalene, with her back to the spectator and head in profile looking up at Christ, kneels at the foot of the Cross. Two soldiers on horseback are juSt behind the Cross and to the left while walking figures and the Holy City are visible in the landscape on the right.
The composition is symmetrical and does not break with tradition.1 The Virgin is a type which Rubens used again in his sketch of ca. 1627-28 formerly in the Collection E. Biihrle, Zürich, for the painting in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Church of St. Michael, Ghent.2 He repeated the St. John type in the weeping man on the verso of his ca. 16 18 -19 drawing of Monks, Cardinals
and a Woman, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, Antwerp,3 and in the 1620 Chrili on the Cross ("Le Coup de Lance” ), Royal Museum, Antwerp.4 Mary
Magdalene’s bold position, with her back fully turned to the viewer, is very different from Rubens’s Flemish forerunners where she is seen from the side.5
Rubens had firSt used this in 16 1 1 - 1 2 in the sketch for The Descent from
the Cross, Courtauld Institute of Art, Lee Colledion, London.6 The idealized
rendering of Christ’s torso, especially the musculature, appears to be a distant remembrance of the Laocoön which Rubens had Studied and often drew.7
The Chriït Dead on the Cross was made expressly for the 1616 Missale
Romanum published in-folio by the Plantin Press.8 This illustration was
certainly not executed for the 16 13 Missale in which Marten de Vos’s 1606 design was used. Nor could it have been made for the 16 14 Breviarium
Romanum and then discarded because this subjeft had never been given a
full-page illustration in a Plantin Breviarium. One can conclude, therefore, that this design was made specifically for Moretus’s 1616 Missale Romanum. This publication also repeated the ten themes present in the 16 13 Missale but now all of them were designed by Rubens. Two of the illustrations had appeared firSt in the 16 13 Missale, The Adoration of the Magi (No. 8; Fig. 5 1) and
The Ascension of Chriït (No. 9; Fig. 53); they had already been re-used, after
retouching by Rubens (Nos 22, 24; Figs. 83, 87) in the 1614 Breviarium. Seven engravings were taken over in the 1616 Missale from the 16 14 Breviarium'.
The Annunciation (No. 20; Fig. 79), The Resurrection of Chriït (No. 23;
Fig. 85), Pentecoït (No. 25; Fig. 88), The haït Supper (No. 26; Fig. 89),
The Assumption of the Virgin (No. 27; Fig. 92) and A ll Saints (No. 28;
Fig. 94). The one new Rubens illustration for the 1616 Missale was Chriït
Dead on the Cross. The ten borders of the 16 13 Missale, including the two by
Rubens (Nos. 6, 7; Figs. 47,49), were also used in the 1616 edition. Between December 30, 16 15, and June 28, 1616, Moretus paid Theodore Galle 352 guilders for printing 1,600 copies of each of the ten plates, the ten borders and the title-page (Appendix III, p. 460 [32 ]). Some of the plates used earlier had to be reworked by the engraver: The Resurrection of Chriït (Appendix III, p. 460 [ 3 1 ] ) , The Adoration of the Magi and The Assumption of the Virgin (Appendix III, p. 460 [32 ]). Moretus sold the 1616 Missale to the public for seven guilders printed on ordinary paper and illustrated with the ten vignettes and the engraved title-page. When fully illustrated (21 engravings) and printed on ordinary paper, it coSt eleven guilders, while 12 guilders 10 Stuivers was the price of a completely illustrated volume printed on “ larger” (better) paper (Appendix II,
p.
434 [ 8 ] ) ,9 The same full-page Rubens designs were used again by the Plantin Press for their 1618 Missale Romanum. Theodore Galle’s copper plate is preserved in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp.101 Cf. the illustrations by Pieter van der Borcht and Marten de Vos for the missals
published by the Plantin Press in 1572, 1606 and 1613
{Evers, 194$,figs. 151, 152).
2