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Date : approx. between 1611 and 1612
Sizes : 1.42 m wide
Material : Oil on canvas
Acquisition : On loan from a private collection
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Flemish and Northern Painting
Painting
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| Description |  |
This is one of the most brutal episodes in biblical history. Herod's soldiers have been ordered to kill all new-born boys to stop one of them becoming a Messiah. The details here are compelling - the scratch on the soldier's cheek, the old woman biting, the bowed head of the mourning mother beside the heap of dead children.
In this work, Rubens demonstrates the lessons he had learnt in Italy: his ability to paint the male nude, to handle compositions of great complexity, and portray a wide range of emotions -grief, violence and desperate love.
In the 18th century the painting was in the Lichtenstein collection, together with "Samson and Delilah". It was miscataloged in Vincenzio Fanti's 1767 inventory of that collection and remained unrecognized until its rediscovery in 2001.
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