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Rubens

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278 illustrations, including 96 pages in full color.

Joining in the worldwide celebration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens presents this superb volume on the greatest of Baroque painters.

This book is in every way worthy of the magnificent artist it is designed to honor - an artist whose work has an irresistible power that his contemporaries acknowledged from the start of this career, a man of learning and kindliness, whose aura of urbanity, of good fortune and good living, is unmatched among artists.

The author, Frans Baudouin, is Belgium's outstanding Baroque scholar and Curator of the Art Historical Museums of the City of Antwerp (including the Rubens House). His text consists of a substantial introduction and fifteen essays, studies in depth of Ruben's work from the earliest to the late, great productions. Ruben's life and art have never before had so handsome a showcase, so splendid a presentation: the youth in Italy; the young painter coming home in triumph to Antwerp; the successful artist, filling commissions large and small from all over Europe; the widower and diplomat to European courts; the grand dignitary with his new young wife, painting the masterpieces that crowned a lifetime of high achievement.

Full-page plates in color of consummate beauty; ample blank-and-white plates and details; a full complement of drawings and prints; views of Ruben's houses, his workshops, and his altarpieces in situ; portraits of his family, his friends - the book overflows with the shining richness of his life and works. Valuable adjuncts to the text are the notes with bibliography, list of illustrations, and index.