Painting materials of Peter Paul Rubens

Below is a short summary and a bibliography of my restoration literature readings on this subject.
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Lala Ragimov, M.F.A.

    I would like to mention that almost all of these colours are available through specialty art materials suppliers. If artists showed more interest in using these pigments they would become available more widely and at a lower price. I use most of them and I find them more complex and interesting, less saturated, and more diverse in texture than the modern paints. They are definitely worth a try by any artist.



Rubens's palette (pigments):

Synthetic:  lead white (stack process), vermilion (dry process), lead-tin yellow (type I), verditer (often blue-green), Eschel variety smalt (blue or a colourless kind that was sometimes used as an additive in all colours), verdigris, red lead / minium (rarely mentioned)

Minerals:  lazurite / natural ultramarine / lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, orpiment (very rare, found in some very early paintings done in Italy), quarz (mentioned in one paper, used as an additive)

Earths:  yellow ochre, brown and red-brown earths, hematite, umber; Kassel / Cologne earth / Van Dyck brown, chalk (sometimes added to all paints), green earth (rarely mentioned)

Organic origin:  stil de grain / schietgeel / brown pink (buckthorn berry yellow lake), cochineal lake, madder lake, indigo (usually in underpaint for lazurite), charcoal black (for example in the blueish-grey colour in flesh tones), bone black, lamp black


Vehicles (medium):

linseed oil, walnut oil (often in whites, blues and light colours)

turpentine, pine resin (trace amounts often found in glazes, said to come from turpentine); egg (white, yolk) (detected in some paintings)

Supports:

panels: made of oak planks from circa 1.2cm (1610s) to 0.6cm (1630s) thick 

covered by calcium carbonate chalk in glue (gesso) 
and a streaky priming (imprimatura) of yellow or brown earths or/and charcoal black, sometimes some lead white, in oil or in a medium containing egg, possibly an egg-oil emulsion

canvas: usually tabby weave linen with a double oil priming: a yellowish or reddish thicker layer (yellow or red earths, chalk, sometimes small quatities of other pigments) covered with an opaque thinner grey or buff layer (lead white and charcoal black).

Rubens palette, pigments, brushes  
a palette from a Rubens painting "Education of Marie de' Medici" (Louvre)
to me the paints look like vermilion, lead-tin yellow, lead white with mixtures, ochres, and other earths below

Rubens Palette sketch





a palette from an oil sketch for the above painting (Louvre)
on panel, note the streaky imprimatura.

Bibliography:

Altamura, Maria Luisa, ed. Marco Ciatti “La tecnica artistica di Rubens nelle due grandi tele degli Uffizi.“ Rubens agli Uffizi: il restauro delle Storie di Enrico IV. (Florence, Edifir, 2001), 49-59

Brown, Christopher. Rubens's Landscapes: Making and Meaning, London: National Gallery London, 1998.

Bruce-Gardiner, Robert and Helen Braham. “Rubens's Landscape by Moonlight”, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 130, no. 1025, (1988), 579-596.

Buck, Richard. “Rubens's The Gerbier Family; examination and treatment”, Studies in the History of Art (1973): 32-53.

Boersma, Annetje, Friso Lammertse and Alejandro Vergara. “Catalogue”, Peter Paul Rubens. The Life of Achilles, (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2003).

Cardinali, Marco, Maria Beatrice De Ruggieri, Claudio Falcucci. "I dipinti di Rubens alla Vallicella: Studio della tecnica esecutiva" in La festa del colore: Rubens alla Chiesa Nuova, ed. Anna Gramiccia. (De Luca Editori d'Arte, 2005), 39-63. 

Doherty, Tiarna, Mark Leonard and Jorgen Wadum. “Brueghel and Rubens at Work: Technique and the Practice of Collaboration”, Rubens and Brueghel a Working Friendship. (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Hague: Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in association with Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 2006), 215-251.

Feller, Robert L. “Rubens's The Gerbier Family; technical examination of the pigments and paint layers”, Studies in the History of Art (1973): 54-74

Fisher, Sarah. “The Finding of Erichthonius”, Allen Memorial Art Bulletin, vol. 38, no.1 (1980-1981): 21-37.

Fabian, Daniel. “Wan eim ein geschossener Pfeil im Lieb ist plieben”, Hommage à Paolo Cadorin; l’amour de l’art, (1999), 117-126.

Goetghebeur, Nicole; Guislain-Wittermann, Régine; and Masschelein-Kleiner, Liliane. "Painting Technique", Bulletin (Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique), vol. 24 no 182 (1992):  119-138.

Keith, Larry. “The Rubens Studio and the Drunken Silenius Supported by Satyrs”, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 20 (1999): 96-104.

Kirby, Joe. “The Painter’s Trade in the 17th Century,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 20 (1999): 5-49.

Lammerste, Friso. “Small, larger, largest. The making of Peter Paul Rubens’s Life of Achilles”, Peter Paul Rubens. The Life of Achilles, (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2003), 11-31.

Plesters, Joyce. “Samson and Delilah: Rubens and the Art and Craft of Painting on Panel”, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 7 (1983): 30-49.

Nykogosyan, Mariam. "Susanna and the Elders from the Rostov Regional Museum of Fine Arts; the lost painting of Rubens' studio?", VDR Beitrage zur Erhaltung von Kunst- und Kulturgut, (2005): 28-37.

Roy, Ashok. “Rubens’s Peace and War”, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 20 (1999): 89-95.

Saunders, Linnaea. “A Rubens Portrait Re-examined”, AIC Paintings Specialty Group Postprints, vol. 18 (Minneapolis: June 8-13, 2005), 76-83

Von Sonnenburg, Hubertus. “Rubens Bildaufbau und Technik II. Farbe und Auftragstechnik”, Maltechnik Restauro, vol. 85, issue 3 (1979), 181-203

Wadum, Jorgen. “Latest News from Paradise a Preliminary Attempt to Identify Rubens's Studio Practice, Part II”, Preprints of the ICOM Committee for Conservation 13th Triennial Meeting, (Rio de Janeiro, 22-27 September 2002), 473-448.

Wallert, Arie. Still Lifes: Techniques and Style, (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; in association with Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 1999).

© Lala Ragimov