RUBENS’ ROUTE TO DIPLOMATIC SUCCESS

Peter Paul Rubens was an extraordinary figure whose artistic brilliance propelled him into the highest circles of European diplomacy – and his early career was defined by a journey from his hometown of Antwerp to Rome.

It was a common enough move among young Flemish artists at the time, but Rubens seems to have been especially inspired by the art he saw as he travelled south via Venice, Mantua and Florence in 1600. And when he arrived in Rome he was further dazzled, not only by the works of Michelangelo and Raphael, but also by the brilliance and dramatic light effects of the young Caravaggio, who was just beginning to make his name in the city.

Just as Caravaggio was a natural rebel, Rubens was a born diplomat and as his artistic reputation grew, his powerful patrons quickly spotted his potential as an emissary. The Duke of Mantua sent him to Spain, where both his art and his diplomatic skills hugely impressed the Royal Court. After three more years in Italy, including a stay in Genoa, he returning to Antwerp in

1609, an international superstar and master of a highly productive studio.

In 1621, when on a trip to Paris, he was recruited as a diplomat-cum-spy by the new King of Spain, Philip IV. Then between 1627 and 1630 he engaged in a sort of shuttle diplomacy, brokering a peace deal between Spain and England – a process helped enormously by the fact

that Philip IV and Charles I were both art lovers. His success was rewarded with a knighthood from Charles and ennoblement by Philip. The National Gallery in London still has a painting – Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars, or Peace and War – which Rubens made for Charles I to mark the 1630 peace deal between Spain and England.

Allegorical souvenir: Rubens marked the deal he brokered by painting ‘Peace and War’