The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 25, 2023

Study for "The Bear Hunt" (for the Alcázar, Madrid)

c. 1639

Peter Paul Rubens

(Flemish, 1577–1640)

Flanders, 17th century

Oil on wood

Framed: 70.5 x 40.6 x 7.6 cm (27 3/4 x 16 x 3 in.); Unframed: 26 x 53.7 cm (10 1/4 x 21 1/8 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1983.69

Location

213 Dutch Painting

Fun Fact

With just a few quick brushstrokes, Rubens evokes the energy and drama of a ferocious hunt.

Description

On June 22, 1639, King Philip IV of Spain received a letter from his younger brother Ferdinand (1609–1641). The letter explained that the artist Peter Paul Rubens had recently completed all of the sketches for a series of paintings that were to hang in the halls of the Alcázar Palace in Madrid. Bear Hunt is one of seven surviving studies out of the original eighteen. In this scene, a bear attacks a hunter and a companion comes to his aide The others work to stave off a second angry bear. The sketch was completed in the last year Rubens's life, and the paintings for the series were never completed.

Provenance
(Christie's, London, E. Henstridge sale, April 11, 1930, no. 91, sold to Rothschild)
(A. G. von Frey [Alexander von Frey]) 1
Nov. 12, 1930 - June 10, 1937
(Thos. Agnew & Sons, London).
June 10, 1937 -
G. Huntington Hartford (1911-2008), New York.
- May 15, 1972
(Newhouse Galleries, New York)
May 15, 1972 - Feb. 13, 1973
(Thos. Agnew & Sons, London)
Private collection
1979
(Thos. Agnew and Sons, London)
1980
Private collection, Portugal.
1983
(Sotheby's, London, sale, June 23, 1983, no. 40, ill.)
1983
(Newhouse Galleries, New York), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Provenance Footnotes

1 The collector and art dealer Alexander von Frey (1882-1951), a Hungarian national, began to amass his art collection in the 1920s. Throughout the 1930s to end of World War II, he lived in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and Lucerne. While living in Lucerne in the mid-1940s, he began to use the name A. C. de Frey. In 1948, de Frey and his wife, Erika, moved to the United States where they lived in New York and Vermont (see: https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/350/)
During WWII Frey is known to have been involved in the trading of confiscated art; however there is no suggestion that 1983.69 came into von Frey's possession in this manner.
Citations
Larsen, Erik. P.P. Rubens. With a Complete Catalogue of his Works in America. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1952. Mentioned: p. 200, under no. 112
Bordley, Rogers. Rubens ou Snyders? Paris: La Nef de Paris, 1956. Mentioned: pp. 85, 147; Reproduced: fig. 81 (as by Snyders)
The Burlington Magazine 65 (1973) Mentioned: p. 53; reproduced: fig. 51
Díaz Padrón, Matías. In Pedro Pablo Rubens (1577-1640): exposición homenaje. Exh. cat. Madrid: Palacio de Velazquez, published by Madrid: Dirección General del Patrimonio Artistico, Archivos y Museos, 1977. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 110, no. 94
Jaffé, Michael. "Exhibitions for the Rubens Year, III." The Burlington Magazine 120 no. 902 (1978) Mentioned: p. 346, no. 94
Held, Julius S. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens: A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. Mentioned: vol. 1, pp. 309-310, no. 225; Reproduced: vol. 2, pl. 235
The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71 (1984) Mentioned: p. 68, no. 23; Reproduced: p. 69
Turner, Evan H. "Year in Review for 1983." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 2 (1984): 38-79. Referenced: cat. no. 23, p. 68, Reproduced: p. 69 www.jstor.org
Adler, Wolfgang, and Arnout Balis. Landscapes and Hunting Scenes (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchardt, pt. 18), vol. 2: Arnout Balis, Rubens Hunting Scenes. London: H. Miller, 1986. Mentioned: pp. 263-264; Reproduced: fig. 133
Museo de San Carlos, and Palazzo dei diamanti (Ferrara, Italy). Rubens y su siglo. Mexico: Landucci/Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1999. Referenced: cat. no. 21
Museo de San Carlos, and Palazzo dei diamanti (Ferrara, Italy). Rubens y su siglo. Mexico: Landucci/Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1999. Reproduced: p. 120-122, no. 21
Sutton, Peter C., Marjorie E. Wieseman, and Nico van Hout. Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. Referenced: cat. no. 41
Weller, Dennis P. Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2009. Mentioned: p. 299; Reproduced p. 300, fig. 62A
Exhibition history

The Year in Review for 1983. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 22-April 8, 1984).

Rubens and His Time. Museo de San Carlos (INBA) (November 5, 1998-February 28, 1999).

Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT (October 2, 2004-January 30, 2005); Berkeley Museum of Art/Pacific Film Archive, CA (March 2-May 22, 2005); The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH (organizer) (June 11-September 11, 2005).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1983.69