Around the years 1630s, the artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) asked his pupil Abraham Van Diepenbeeck (1596-1675) to travel to Paris and accomplish a set of drawn copies after frescos made a...Show moreAround the years 1630s, the artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) asked his pupil Abraham Van Diepenbeeck (1596-1675) to travel to Paris and accomplish a set of drawn copies after frescos made a century before by the Mannerist artist Francesco Primaticcio and his assistant Niccolò dell'Abbate in different Parisian châteaus. In the year 2020, a hitherto unpublished group of 17 drawings and counterproofs by Van Diepenbeeck from this commission arose in the collections of the Rubenianum in Antwerp. This thesis explores the enterprise, with special attention to this set of 17 drawings and counterproofs. Moreover, it analyses the use that Rubens made of these drawn copies, back in his Antwerp workshop, as fundamental sources of inspiration for his future artworks.Show less
