by Mark Lamster
They were right, of course. From practically the moment he had dismounted his horse, Rubens had been consulting with Olivares on matters of state. Unlike Spinola, the artist seemed to get along well with the count-duke, who held him in high esteem. Whereas the marquis was an old soldier, quiet and efficient, Rubens was an urbane man of letters and no threat to the valido’s authority. They had, in fact, already established a respectful and charitable relationship. A few years earlier, at the count-duke’s request, the artist had drawn a portrait of Olivares for use in a commemorative print. (Never having seen him in person, Rubens worked from original images provided by Velázquez.) Olivares responded with a gracious note, thanking Rubens for “the love that you have shown me.” Upon the death of Rubens’s wife, Isabella, the count-duke sent a letter of condolence.
This budding friendship did not prevent Rubens from offering a typically gimlet-eyed appraisal of Olivares and his retinue. In his correspondence from Madrid, he bemoaned the rather “severe” and “supercilious” nature of Spanish intellectual life, a tone set by the count-duke. Despite these personal reservations, Rubens was well prepared to navigate in that kind of atmosphere, and achieved in short order that which had failed Spinola for months: the conversion of Olivares to his cause. Rubens’s gift for persuasion and his amicable relationship with Olivares surely contributed to this success. Though the count-duke remained unwilling to compromise with the Dutch, a peace with England was something he was beginning to see as useful. As Rubens argued, such a treaty would mean one less enemy for Spain and, through the good offices of the English king, increase pressure on the Hollanders to cave in to his demands.
At the end of September, the count-duke took Rubens and his advice to the Council of State. Olivares opened the session with a lengthy preamble, carefully framing the proposed peace negotiation from a position of Spanish strength. England, having learned the futility of any attack on Spain after its pitiful and unprovoked expedition at Cádiz, was now on its knees before the Habsburg crown. Olivares proceeded to review his own correspondence with English ministers for the council, and then called upon Rubens to make a presentation to the assembly. Flanked by his new ally, Rubens exhibited the papers he had brought from Antwerp and asserted that in his estimation England was sincere in its desire to make a formal peace with Spain, and on acceptable terms.
Together, Olivares and Rubens made for a convincing team, and they could bolster their case by noting that an English envoy, newly arrived in Madrid, had informed them that Buckingham himself was willing to come to Spain to negotiate the proposed agreement. Moreover, Buckingham would be joined by Sir Francis Cottington, a two-time English ambassador to Spain and the most powerful Hispanophile in the English government. Informed of these positive developments, the typically wavering council accepted Olivares’s request to formally open negotiations, and the diffident king followed with his approval. For a moment, it looked as if the whole plan just might come together.
Buckingham, however, was in no position to make a trip to Madrid—or anywhere else—in September 1628. He was dead, and had been for more than a month. At the end of August, a wounded and disgruntled veteran of the disastrous campaign at Île de Ré had taken a knife to the duke at Portsmouth, on England’s southern coast. News of Buckingham’s assassination did not reach Madrid until October, after the meeting of the Council of State. Rubens had in recent months predicted just such an ignominious end for his patron, suggesting the French failure would make him “the sport of fortune.” But the moment of his death was, to say the least, inopportune. Buckingham, though widely detested, was the primary English champion of a Spanish alliance, and while it seemed there was still enthusiasm for the idea at Whitehall, there would be a temporary hiatus in discussions while the political situation in London sorted itself out.
RUBENS TOOK FULL ADVANTAGE of his extended time in the Spanish capital. He was assigned a suite of rooms in the Alcázar, where he shared a studio space with Velázquez adjacent to the Gallery of the North Wind, which was itself conveniently placed between a game room and the count-duke’s private apartments. From their window, the two artists could look out to a mountain landscape. Off to their right they could see the picadero, used as a bullring and for equestrian sports. It is appealing to imagine the two men painting together in the crisp morning light and, in the afternoon, talking about their craft on leisurely strolls through the gridded parterre of the Jardín de la Reina, adjacent to the eastern wing of the palace. They had probably been in contact even before Rubens’s trip to Spain, in regard to Rubens’s portrait drawing of the count-duke.
According to Francisco Pacheco, Velázquez’s father-in-law, the two painters became friends during Rubens’s stay in Madrid, and even traveled together to visit the Escorial, an hour’s ride north of the city. At the very end of his life, in one of his last letters, Rubens wrote fondly of that trip, though he didn’t mention his traveling companion. The climb up through the Guadarramas was hard work for the artists, but they had made their journey on a warm day with gentle breezes. From the summit of La Nava, beneath an immense wooden cross, the two men could look over a great valley toward the broad facade of the monastery, the village adjacent to it, and the royal hunting lodge—the Fresneda—with its two crystalline ponds. To their right, clouds wisped over the Sierra Tocada. A hermit walking with a donkey and a deer peeking in from the surrounding forest made for a scene so idyllic Rubens felt compelled to paint it “on the spot.”
Pacheco, the author of a history of painting, claimed Rubens admired the works of his son-in-law for their humility—not an attribute normally associated with Rubens’s art, but one he appreciated in others, especially the Flemish genre painters who were his friends and occasional collaborators. Rubens recognized a great talent (like Caravaggio) when so confronted, and was self-possessed enough to assimilate new ideas without becoming a slave to them (like Caravaggio’s Utrecht disciples). Velázquez, however, appears to have had no measurable effect on Rubens, who was then past his fiftieth birthday and twenty-two years the Spaniard’s senior. Rubens, similarly, had little discernible impact on Velázquez, even if he could reasonably claim to be the single most influential artist alive, and certainly the best paid. In truth, their work was inherently irreconcilable. Whereas Rubens’s canvases were, for the most part, emotionally charged and full of dynamic, colorful energy, Velázquez’s pictures were marked by a controlling, almost clinical detachment. This, however, did not necessarily preclude them from becoming friends.
If there was any friction between the two painters, or more likely a sense of rivalry, it was probably driven by Rubens’s budding relationship with Philip. For five years, Velázquez alone had been allowed to paint the king from life, a privilege extended to him by Olivares as a means of controlling the imagery of state. (Titian had been given this honor during the reign of Charles V.) The very pretext of Rubens’s stay in Madrid impinged upon that status, and Philip had every intention of taking advantage of his presence.
Widely traveled, well-read, adored by kings and queens, and an undisputed master of his art, Rubens must have appeared a romantic figure to the youthful Planet King, who had a keen interest in the world beyond Spanish borders, a world he had never experienced firsthand. At the encouragement of his mentor, the count-duke, Philip had developed a genuine interest in the arts. He was a regular at Madrid’s two raucous public theaters, the Corral de la Cruz and the Corral del Príncipe, and was a patron of the great dramatists Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca as well as the rival poets Francisco de Quevedo and Luis de Góngora. He was conversant in nearly as many languages as Rubens, and had even translated the work of the Italian traveler Lodovico Guicciardini, who in the preceding century dubbed Antwerp the marketplace “of all the universe.” His relationship with Velázquez testified to his interest (and good taste) in painting. If he thought the professional practice of that art was beneath the dignity of a member of his diplomatic staff, he didn’t think it base to take u
p the tools of that trade himself, as a hobby. Juan Bautista Maino, an artist and Dominican friar, gave Philip regular instruction in drawing. “The king takes great delight in painting and in my opinion is a very gifted prince,” wrote Rubens after a few months at court. He followed up that appraisal with a more nuanced assessment: “He is endowed with all the good qualities of mind and body, as I can affirm from my personal knowledge of him. If he were less distrustful of himself, and relied less on others, he would be equal to the most exalted rank, and capable of governing empires. But as it is, he is paying the price of his own credulity and the incapacity of others, and is the object of a hatred he has done nothing to deserve.”
The proximity of the artist’s studio to the king’s quarters, just a few rooms away on the main floor of the Alcázar, made it convenient for Philip to sit for the master. The two men talked amicably as Rubens worked, sketching the king’s spade-shaped visage, with its high forehead and jutting “Habsburg jaw”—a genetic deformity magnified over generations of inbreeding. Rubens made a series of portraits of Philip, in various poses, some for the king himself, some destined for the infanta in Brussels. In early October, Rubens borrowed equipment from the royal armory and stables for an equestrian portrait commissioned by the king for his own use. Philip was aware of the magnificent equestrian portraits Rubens had made for Lerma and Buckingham, and he wanted that same grandiose treatment for himself. Rubens obliged, sitting His Majesty on a charging bay horse, with allegorical figures representing justice and faith hovering overhead and an American Indian, symbol of his extensive empire, off to the side holding a gleaming helmet. This Philip was every bit the symbol of divine authority, hardly the same man that Rubens described as “distrustful of himself.” Not surprisingly, the king was thrilled with it. Indeed, Philip was so pleased that he decided to install it opposite Titian’s Charles V at Mühlberg in the Salón Nuevo—displacing the equestrian portrait only recently completed for that very space by his favored court artist, Diego Velázquez. In a celebratory verse, the poet Lope de Vega called Rubens “el nuevo Ticiano.”
That compliment was perhaps more appropriate than Vega realized. While Rubens was figuratively emulating Titian, he was also quite literally imitating the Venetian master. During his stay in Madrid, Rubens made copies for his own use of virtually every Titian in the city, both in the royal collections and in private hands, a total of more than twenty paintings. These were done in addition to the roughly two dozen entirely new compositions Rubens finished, meaning he operated at a pace of about one finished painting per week during his stay in Spain, not counting drawings and preparatory works. It was an astonishing rate of production, and all the more impressive given that he was without his usual workshop assistants (though he undoubtedly had some help) and his primary business in Spain was diplomacy, not painting. That he came down with another debilitating case of gout during the stay didn’t help either, and if even that wasn’t distraction enough, one of his English patrons, James Hay, the Earl of Carlisle, had asked him to keep an eye out for shipments of perfume from the Indies. Rubens did that, too, tipping Hay off to a consignment of fragrant oils from Goa, arriving by way of Angola.
Through it all, Rubens somehow found time to make substantial alterations to the Adoration of the Magi, the large canvas he had painted in 1609 to celebrate the signing of the Twelve Years’ Truce. That painting, plucked from the walls of the Antwerp town hall and given to Rodrigo Calderón, had found its way into the royal collection after Calderón’s disgrace and execution in 1621. Rubens discovered the large picture languishing in a basement wing of the Alcázar reserved for the king’s use during the summer. When the treaty it celebrated concluded, the painting had become politically obsolete. It was not, however, beyond redemption, thanks to Rubens’s endlessly malleable allegorical language. With the artist campaigning for a new international accord, a painting in which kings come together to bestow gifts on a symbol of peace must have seemed relevant once again. Rubens, naturally, decided to resuscitate it, in the process extending the canvas both horizontally and vertically to give him extra space in which to work. Among his alterations was the insertion of a donkey looking away from the central action, perhaps a veiled commentary on those who turn their backs on the peace process. But the most curious addition was a figure sitting on a white steed at the right edge of the canvas. He wears a maroon doublet with a chain of gold draped over his shoulders and a sword peeking up from his hip—the accoutrements of a gentleman. It is, incontrovertibly, the artist himself, Peter Paul Rubens. If there was to be a treaty with England, surely he had earned his place in the picture.
RUBENS WAS READY and willing to gallop off on his white steed, olive branch in hand, but a stream of bad news filtering in from abroad put all of Spain’s plans in jeopardy. The assassination of Buckingham alone had been enough to table negotiations with England. More troubling was the deteriorating situation in northern Italy. The death of Vincenzo II of Mantua (the son of Rubens’s erstwhile patron) without an heir had provoked an awkward free-for-all in the region, with Spain and Savoy opposing the strongest claimant, the French-backed Duke of Nevers. At stake was access to the critical military corridor, the so-called Spanish Road, that linked Spain’s Italian possessions with its holdings in the north. This combustible situation was tenable for Spain only as long as the main body of the French army was pinned down on the Atlantic coast, still engaged in its protracted battle with the Huguenot rebellion at La Rochelle. But by late September 1628 rumors had begun to spread that a truce there was imminent, and by the end of October peace had arrived. Those French troops were now free to move on to Italy.
Olivares had no good response to this development. His best soldiers were already in Flanders, and he couldn’t even afford their salaries—for those war funds, he was dependent on the Mexican silver fleet, due some time before year’s end. It was thus with some horror that he reviewed the note handed him by a page on a cool December evening, with the French envoy, Guillaume Bautru, already in his office. The count-duke grimaced, and Bautru surmised that the news must have been serious if it was to interrupt their meeting. He was right. The dispatches in Olivares’s rigid hands told him that the entire silver fleet—every last ship—had been taken by the Dutch sea captain Piet Heyn at the Bay of Matanzas, on the northern coast of Cuba. Heyn escaped with every ounce of booty on more than twenty ships, in all more than 11 million florins’ worth of treasure and matériel, most of it belonging to the king. Perhaps the greatest insult was that the Spanish sailors had surrendered without firing a single shot. The implications of that debacle would be felt across Europe.
No great leaps of imagination were required to see just what was in store. Frederick Henry, the Prince of Orange, had been massing his army around ’s Hertogenbosch, in Spanish-controlled territory, for months, planning some kind of offensive. Now he had the means to prosecute war on a grand scale, using his enemy’s own funds against its depleted and underpaid army. A concerned Olivares turned to Spinola, his top general, who was still in Madrid, and still hoping against hope that the count-duke might see reason and make peace with the Dutch. Olivares ordered him to return to Flanders to retake command of Spanish forces. Spinola refused. The marquis remained adamant that a diplomatic solution was the only responsible way forward in the Low Countries, and would not leave Madrid without a plan that would keep Flanders from the horrors of both Dutch invaders and Spanish mutineers. Rubens was stunned by his friend’s insubordination, even if he agreed with him in principle. When, in April 1629, the Prince of Orange finally put ’s Hertogenbosch to siege, Spinola was still in Madrid.
The marquis would never return to the Low Countries. In his efforts to bring a peace to that region, he spent all of his political and physical capital. He was recalcitrant, but Olivares was no less stubborn. If Spinola would not go to Flanders, he could not stay in Spain. Instead, the count-duke shunted him off to Milan, to supervise recovery from another Spanish humiliation. Richelieu’s French tro
ops, released from La Rochelle, had reached Italy, and their presence had forced the Spanish surrender of Mantua. The action effectively dissolved the Franco-Spanish alliance that had been formed secretly in March 1626. That agreement had never been much more than a dead letter. In July, Spinola left for Milan, where he would take over as governor-general of Lombardy. Velázquez, anxious to visit Italy for the first time—perhaps on the prompting of Rubens—joined his retinue.
The trip represented an exciting new adventure for the thirty-one-year-old painter, but it was a sad finale for the marquis. Spinola died at the Castello Nuovo on September 25, 1630, a depleted man past his sixtieth birthday. When Rubens found out, a month later, he was heartbroken. “The only thing I can tell you is that it was caused by labors and anxieties too heavy for his strength and his age,” he wrote. “He seemed tired of life … In him I have lost one of my greatest friends and patrons.”
Spinola’s marginalization and ensuing death did not bring Rubens’s mission to a conclusion. If anything, the negotiations Rubens had done so much to champion now appeared a political necessity for a financially straitened Spain, if it was to fight wars in both Flanders and Italy. Following Buckingham’s assassination, Olivares made it a priority to secure assurances that England remained committed to a peace deal. Cottington, whose position at court had only grown stronger with the death of Buckingham, confirmed his sovereign’s positive intentions. In Brussels, the infanta received similar promises from Sir Richard Weston, the powerful lord treasurer, and passed them along to Madrid.
What was required was a trusted emissary who could be sent to England on Spain’s behalf. Rubens, of course, was the ideal candidate. While Spinola had experienced a rapid erosion of his political standing, Rubens had only seen his position rise. Olivares in particular found in him an astute and trustworthy political mind. Philip, the king who had once decried the participation of “a mere painter” in diplomatic affairs, was similarly won over by the visiting artist.