Culture Minister Defers Export Of A Rubens Oil Sketch Of A Wild Boar Hunt

103/07
12 September 2007

Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, has deferred her decision on an export licence application for a Rubens oil sketch: - ‘Meleager and Atalanta hunting the Boar’.

The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The Committee recommended that the decision to issue an export licence be deferred on the grounds that the item is of outstanding aesthetic importance.

Mythological subjects were a major theme in Rubens' production and with their heroic associations these subjects were eagerly sought across the courts of Europe.

The sketch is vigorous yet resolved and although initially produced in the early 1630s was subsequently used as a preparatory sketch for a larger painting commissioned by Philip IV of Spain for one of his hunting lodges c1636-38, which is now lost.

The decision on the export licence application for this picture will be deferred for a period ending on 11 November 2007 inclusive. This period may be extended until 11 March 2008 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds, with a view to making an offer to purchase the picture at the recommended price of £3,301,231.44 is expressed.

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the picture should contact the owner’s agent through:

The Secretary,
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest,
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council,
Victoria House,
Southampton Row,
London,
WC1B 4EA.

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Notes to Editors

1. Media enquiries on the operation of and casework arising from the work of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) should be directed to Communications Manager, John Harrison, on 020 7273 8299, email: john.harrison@mla.gov.uk

2. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, serviced by MLA, which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria. Where the Committee finds that an object meets one or more of the criteria, it will normally recommend that the decision on the export licence application should be deferred for a specified period. An offer may then be made from within the United Kingdom at or above the fair market price.

3. Pictures of this item are available. Please email john.harrison@mla.gov.uk (MLA no longer subscribes to the PixMedia website service).

4. Sir Peter Paul Rubens was one of the pre-eminent artists of the seventeenth-century. He is famous for his portraits, landscapes, altarpieces and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was twice knighted, first by Philip lV of Spain in 1624 and then by Charles l of England in 1630.

5. Rubens turned to the story of Atalanta and Meleager hunting the boar on six occasions as, following his return to Antwerp in 1608, he injected a new, highly charged drama into the hunting scene genre, which he developed to satisfy demand from his aristocratic clients.

6. The painting is an oil sketch dating from towards the end of Rubens’ career, probably in the early 1630s and was painted in Antwerp. The context of its original execution is unknown, but it was subsequently selected in 1639 by Rubens as appropriate for inclusion as part of a commission of works by the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand on behalf of Philip lV of Spain, as a modello for a larger painting of the Calydonian Boar Hunt for the king’s summer apartments in the Alcazar.

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