Man in Armor

Artist Peter Paul Rubens Flemish, 1577 - 1640

Dateca. 1615

Place of OriginAntwerp, Flanders, Belgium

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsPanel (Original Panel): 19 5/8 × 16 3/16 in. (49.8 × 41.1 cm)
Frame Dimensions: 25 3/8 x 21 13/16 in. (64.5 x 55.4 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineThe Hyde Collection Trust, 1952

Object number1971.41

On View

On view

Collections

European Paintings & Sculpture

DescriptionRubens likely intended this loosely painted close-up of the head and shoulders of a man in armor as a model for a figure in a larger work rather than as a portrait of a specific person. The sitter’s rugged face, with thick curly brown hair, deep set eyes, and heavy beard, appears in a three-quarters pose, angled towards the light coming from the viewer’s right. His eyes stare into the distance without acknowledging the presence of viewers. Rubens often produced oil sketches like The Hyde head; this particular one does not reappear within Rubens’s extant oeuvre.

James Kettlewell suggests this head was to serve as a "standard hero type" for Rubens, characterizing him as "an actor in his role." Hyde curator Joseph Dodge suggests it is a prototype for a classical hero such as Hannibal. A 1928 article by Ludwig Burchard reports a larger "replica" of this head, one including his right arm and hand, then in a private collection in Germany but sold at auction in 1999 (current location is unknown). Working from a good photograph, Dodge concludes that work was a copy by a weaker artist after The Hyde original. Dodge also reports a copy in mezzotint from around 1770 of The Hyde work.

Jonathan J. Tavares, the Associate Curator of Arms and Armor at the Art Institute of Chicago, noted that the figure’s gorget (the piece of armor over his throat) was one hundred years out of style in the early seventeenth century. This further suggests that Rubens intended this painting as a study for a future work rather than as a portrait of a contemporary man. The loose, painterly brushstrokes are characteristic of Rubens’s preparatory studies, his modelli. An approximately one-inch wide strip was at some time added along the left edge of the panel.

Text by Penny Howell Jolly, Professor Emerita of Art History, Skidmore College, February 2026Exhibition HistoryRoyal Academy of Arts, London, 1871, cat. 71.

"Seventeenth Century in Europe," Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1938.

Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, October 1941.

"Peter Paul Rubens," Schaeffer & Brandt Galleries, Inc., New York, NY, Nov. 23- Dec. 19, 1942.

"Rubens," Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY, Feb. 20- Mar. 31, 1951, cat. 16.

"The Painterly and the Picturesque: Trends in Eighteenth Century European Art," The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, Hoopes Gallery, Sept. 23- Dec. 30, 2001 (?note in file on label copy says Jan. 6, 2002).Provenanceby 1791, Paris, France, Donjeu or van Dongen (dealer)
1791, Broadlands, Ramsey, Hampshire, England, Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount of Palmerston
before 1940, Lady Edwina Cynthia Annette Mount Temple Mountbatten (by descent)
1940, New York, NY, Lilienfeld Galleries
1941; Glens Falls, NY, Mrs. Charlotte P. Hyde
1952, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust