International studio (51.1913/1914)

Achilles Tapestries Designed by Rubens


Loaned, by Mr. George R. While to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

shadows and bold reliefs, with Baroque architec-
ture. The tapestry is signed in the bottom sel-
vedge with the Brussels mark (a shield between
two B’s) and with the initials (G. V. D. S.) of
G. Van Der Strecken. Mr. White’s other Achilles
tapestry, The Anger of Achilles against Agamem-
non, is signed (I. V. LEEFDAEL), Ian Van Leef-
dael, who was also associated with G. Van Der
Strecken in weaving at least one other well-known
set of tapestries, the five at the Metropolitan Mu-
seum picturing the story of Antony and. Cleopatra.
The subjects of Rubens’ nine Achilles designs,
arranged in the order of the story, are:
1. Achilles Brought to the Oracle.
2. Achilles Dipped in the Styx
3. Achilles Educated by Cheiron.
4. Achilles Recognized by Ulysses among the
Daughters of Lycomedes.
5. Achilles’ Mother, Thetis, Proctiring Arms for
him from Vulcan.
6. The Anger of Achilles against Agamemnon.
7. Briseis Restored to Achilles.
8. The Death of Hector.
9. The Death of Achilles.

The inventory of the property of the
painter Rubens, made at his death in
1640, listed ten small oil-painted panels of wood,
picturing the story of Achilles. But as the invent-
ory of his father-in-law, Daniel Fourment, who
died three years later, listed only eight, and as the
two sets of engravings made from the panels—by
Francois Ertringer, Antwerp, 1679, and by
Bernard Baron, London, 1724—included only
eight, it has been supposed that possibly the ten
of the Rubens inventory was an error. It re-
mained for Dr. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Curator of
Decorative Arts of the New York Metropolitan
Museum, to prove that there must have been at
least nine, by discovering last year in a New York
shop the two tapestries illustrated herewith, and
now lent to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
by Mr. George R. White. While one of these
tapestries, The Anger of Achilles against Agamem-
non, reproduces one of the well-known eight de-
signs, the other is different from any of them, and,
as is shown by the Latin
inscription in the cartouche
at the top, Achilles puer a
matre adducitur ad oracu-
lum, pictures a scene in¬
troductory to the series,
The Child Achilles Brought
by his Mother to the Oracle.
On the right the boy
Achilles, entirely nude, is
ushered into the fane by
his mother, Thetis, who
in her right hand bears a
richly chased cup to add to
the offerings already de¬
posited before the altar.
The laurel-crowned and
richly-robed priest receives
her graciously. Two aco¬
lytes bear flaming lamps
with elaborately orna¬
mented standards. The
caryatides on each side
are Minerva and Hercules,
the Goddess of War and
the God of Strength, to
whom Achilles was conse-
crated. The style of both
panel and border is emi-
nently Rubenesque—deep

ACHILLES TAPESTRIES DESIGNED
/\ BY RUBENS

THE ANGER OF ACHILLES AGAINST AGAMEMNON

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