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Studies of a Roman Sarcophagus
Inscriptions
Inscribed by the artist, upper left, in pen and brown ink: "Socrates procul dubio" (Socrates without doubt); upper right: "Xantippe quae stomachatur / vide os columnatum" (Xantippe in one of her moods / see her pillared face); inscribed, lower left, in pen and brown ink: "Rubbens"; verso, upper left, in graphite: "PP Rubens 1577–1640"; lower left, in graphite: "lot 34, 11 ⅛ x 6 ⅜ / Socrates Telanteppe/ Rubens 1577–1640"; lower center, in pen and blue ink: "Peter Paul Rubens 1577–1640"
Provenance
Dr. Christian David Ginsburg (1831–1914), Palmer’s Green, England [stamp (Lugt 1145), verso, lower left, in black]; sold, Sotheby’s, London, July 20–23, 1915, lot 34, to William F. E. Gurley (1854–1943), Chicago [stamp (Lugt 5308), recto, lower left, in black and inscription verso, lower left, in graphite]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago for the Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection, 1922 [stamp (Lugt 1230b), verso, lower center, in black].
Exhibition history
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Drawings and Oil Sketches by P. P. Rubens, from American Collections, Jan. 14–Feb. 29, 1956, p. 13, no. 5, pl. II; also New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Mar. 20–Apr. 28, 1956. New York, Wildenstein, Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity, Oct. 30, 1968–Jan. 4, 1969, no. 41, pl. 10. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Peter Paul Rubens, 1577-1640: Rubens in Italien: Gemälde, Ölskizzen, Zeichnungen, Oct. 15–Dec. 15, 1977, p. 266, no. 62 (ill.). Birmingham, Ala., Birmingham Museum of Art, Rubens and Humanism, Apr. 15–May 28, 1978, p. 50, no. 36 (ill.). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings, Jan. 14–Apr. 3, 2005, cat.19, pp. 106–07 (ill.). The Art Institute of Chicago, "Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age", September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 94-95, 99 (ill.), 312, cat. 31, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.
Publications
Jan-Albert Goris and Julius S. Held, Rubens in America (New York, 1947), p. 43, no. 109, pl. 100. Julius S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings (Garden City, N.Y., 1959), vol. 1, pp. 156–157, no. 160, fig. 38; vol. 2, pl. 169. Victor H. Miesel, Rubens and Ancient Art (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Michigan, 1959), p. 11, n. 20, p. 60, n. 116. Victor H. Miesel, “Rubens’ Study Drawings after Ancient Sculpture,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts (May–June 1963), pp. 320–321, fig. 14. Wolfgang Stechow, Rubens and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 31–34, fig. 19. Elizabeth McGrath, “‘The Drunken Alcibiades’: Rubens’s Picture of Plato’s Symposium,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 46 (1983), p. 232, nn. 23, 24, pl. 43a. Julius S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings (Oxford, 1986), pp. 40, 73–74, no. 21; p. 171, pl. 21. Michael Jaffé, Rubens and Italy p. 83, no. 71, fig. 302. Müller-Hofstede, Rubens in Italien, p. 266, no. 62 (ill.). Van der Meulen, Marjon, Rubens: Copies After the Antique, ed. Arnout Balis, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XXIII, 3 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1994), no. 138, vol. II, pp. 157–159; vol. III (fig. 269). Logan, Anne-Marie in collaboration with Michiel C. Plomp, Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 106–07, no. 19, (ill.).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens / Flemish, 1577-1640
- Date
- 1602/03
- Medium
- Black chalk on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- 28.5 × 42 cm (11 1/4 × 16 9/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- graphite
- Place
- Flanders
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
- Accession no.
- 1922.2002
More by Peter Paul Rubens in museum collections
The Feast of Herod (recto); Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)
Peter Paul Rubensc. 1637–38 · Drawing
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00004050
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