Conference at the Hermitage in Sankt Petersburg, 31 May 2007
In order to mark the closing of the exhibition "Rubens : Two Versions of One Painting", which has enjoyed a great success, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg will organize on the 31st of May 2007 a conference, where several experts and art historians will talk about the works of Rubens and mostly about the two painting featured in the exhibition.
The two versions of the painting "The Statue of Ceres in a Niche which
Cherubs Decorate with Fruit" were featured in a special exhibition at the Hermitage, opened on the 6th of March 2007. It was the first time that the Russian public could see the original versions this famous work, one of the masterpieces of Pieter Paul Rubens.
The theme of the two versions is an Ancient monument, the statue of Ceres, a goddess of vegetation and natural fertility. The first version has been in the collection of the Hermitage since 1768, when it was bought by Catherine the Great in Brussels, when part of the collection of Count Karl Kobenzl was sold. This painting is signed both by Rubens and Frans Snyders, the later having painted the garland of fruit, and the composition was finished around 1615. Not many new at the time that there was a second version of this work, painted by Rubens alone, which was in the Filippi collection in Hamburg, nowadays being a property of the Swiss collector Herman Bayeler. This second version was finished around 1615 - 1617, and Rubens tried to create another painting on the same subject, much more than a mere copy.
April 2007
