Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the River Styx

Name: FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
Brand: Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the River Styx
Price: 17000.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised GBP 21,420

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GBP 18,000 - GBP 25,000

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FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS

Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the River Styx

Price Realised GBP 21,420

FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the River Styx
oil on canvas
18 x 15 in. (45.5 x 38 cm.)

Eugene Rodrigues (1853-1928), Paris; his sale (†), Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 28-29 November 1928, lot 205, as ‘Peter-Paul Rubens’, where acquired by,
M. Thibaut (according to a note in the Documentation des peintures du Louvre).
Art Market, Paris, 1958 (according to E. Haverkamp Begemann, op. cit.).
Anonymous sale; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15 June 2022, lot 27, as 'School of Peter Paul Rubens'.

L. van Puyvelde, Les esquisses de Rubens, Basel, 1948, p. 85, under no. 67, with incorrect dimensions.
E. Haverkamp Begemann, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard: The Achilles Series, X, Brussels, 1975, p. 96, under no.1a.

Paris, Galeries Simonson, Exposition des tableaux & dessins composant la Collection de M. Eugène Rodrigues, 20-24 November 1928, as 'Peter Paul Rubens'.

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
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Lot Essay

This composition is after the prime by Rubens in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. The prime is the first in a series of eight oil sketches executed by Rubens in preparation for a series of tapestries that tell the story of the Greek hero Achilles. There is no mention in Rubens' vast correspondence of a commission for the series, but it seems likely that they were designed for his father-in-law, Daniel Fourment, a tapestry merchant, between 1630 and 1635. In this first episode of the story the sea nymph Thetis is shown dipping her son, the infant Achilles, in the River Styx. Thetis was hoping that by doing so she would make her son immortal, after an oracle had told her that he would die young in battle. Sadly, because she held the child by his foot, as Rubens makes very clear in his composition, this area was not touched by the waters and remained vulnerable, the proverbial Achilles' heel. Ultimately, he would be killed by a poisoned arrow entering this point during the Trojan Wars.