The Workshop of Rubens: How the Greatest Art Factory of the Baroque Worked

In 1611, Peter Paul Rubens wrote from Antwerp that he had been forced to turn away more than a hundred aspirants who wanted to enter and learn at his workshop. One hundred, in a single year. In that figure lies the secret that art history took almost four centuries to accept: Rubens was not just a painter, he was a company. The first great "artistic brand" in Europe. In this video we step inside that house on the Wapper canal that the master transformed into a factory of masterpieces capable of producing more than seventy canvases a year. How the work was divided into five industrial phases, which parts Rubens actually painted and which he delegated to his specialists, how much he charged according to the degree of intervention of his own hand —as he himself detailed to Sir Dudley Carleton in his letter of 1618—, and why for his contemporaries this was not deception but a perfectly regulated system of commercial transparency. We analyze in depth the four great names of the workshop: Anton Van Dyck, the child prodigy who entered at ten and by seventeen was already painting faces and hands at the master's level; Jacob Jordaens, the external collaborator whose mimicry of Rubens's style was so perfect that for centuries his works were attributed to the master; Frans Snyders, the absolute specialist in animals and still lifes who signed 100% of the fauna in famous paintings like The Recognition of Philopoemen or The Lion Hunt; and Jan Brueghel the Elder, the friend and equal collaborator with whom Rubens co-signed the Madonna in a Garland of Flowers. But behind that quartet, through the workshop also passed Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, Cornelis de Vos, Abraham Janssens, Justus van Egmont, Theodoor van Thulden, Frans Wouters, Daniel Seghers, Paul de Vos, Pieter van Avont, Denijs van Alsloot, Pieter Soutman, Gaspar de Crayer, Jan van den Hoecke and Victor Wolfvoet the Younger, among many others. An entire corporation of painters executing works signed by a single brand. And we reach the moment that the Museo del Prado put on the table in its 2024-2025 exhibition curated by Alejandro Vergara: the table of percentages, painting by painting. Saturn Devouring His Son, 95% Rubens. The Three Graces, 98% Rubens. Mercury and Argus, 50% / 50%. The Recognition of Philopoemen, 40% Rubens and 60% Snyders. Democritus, barely 5% of the master. And the most explosive case: Samson and Delilah at the National Gallery in London, purchased in 1980 for 2.5 million pounds, which the Swiss company Art Recognition determined in 2021 through artificial intelligence with a 92% probability of NOT being by Rubens. We also revisit the 1628 encounter in Madrid between Rubens and a young Diego Velázquez of twenty-nine, recently appointed court painter. What those sessions of copying the Titians in the Alcázar taught the Sevillian would change the history of Spanish painting. An investigation into art, power, market, diplomacy and creative genius in 17th-century Europe. And into the question that the Rubens's Workshop catalogue leaves open: what exactly is, in the end, "a Rubens"? 00:00 Antwerp, 1610: the house turned into a factory 01:30 Why 17th-century painting could no longer be artisanal 02:30 The 1611 letter: one hundred aspirants turned away in a year 03:30 A day in the workshop with Otto Sperling, 1621 05:00 The five production phases of a Rubens painting 06:30 The letter to Dudley Carleton: prices by percentage of hand 07:30 Anton Van Dyck, the child prodigy who painted like the master 10:00 Jacob Jordaens and the invisible inheritance 11:30 Frans Snyders, the absolute specialist in animals and still lifes 13:00 Jan Brueghel the Elder, the friend and equal collaborator 14:30 The forgotten names: Quellinus, Van Egmont, Van Thulden and the others 16:00 The corporation: Rubens as haute couture house of the Baroque 17:00 The Prado's percentage table: painting by painting 20:00 The Samson and Delilah case: Art Recognition's verdict (92% non-Rubens) 22:00 1628, Madrid: Rubens and the young Velázquez 23:30 The master's death, May 1640 24:30 What exactly is "a Rubens"? https://myriamalcaraz.com #Rubens #ArtHistory #Baroque #PradoMuseum #VanDyck #FlemishArt #BaroquePainting #Velazquez #History #EuropeanArt #RubensWorkshop #PeterPaulRubens