The Massacre of the Innocents is the title of either of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting an episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents as related in the Gospel of Matthew.
The first version painted by Rubens dates from around 1611–12. In the eighteenth century, the painting was part of the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna, Austria, along with another Rubens' masterpiece, Samson and Delilah. After having been miscatalogued by ...
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The Massacre of the Innocents is the title of either of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting an episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents as related in the Gospel of Matthew.
The first version painted by Rubens dates from around 1611–12. In the eighteenth century, the painting was part of the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna, Austria, along with another Rubens' masterpiece, Samson and Delilah. After having been miscatalogued by Vincenzio Fanti in 1767, it was attributed to one of Rubens' assistants, Jan van den Hoecke, after Rubens. There, however, it remained until it was sold to an Austrian family in 1920. It was subsequently loaned in 1923 to Stift Reichersberg, a monastery in northern Austria.
In 2001, the painting was seen by George Gordon, an expert in Flemish and Dutch paintings at Sotheby's in London. He was persuaded that it was indeed a Rubens by its similar characteristics and style to the Samson and Delilah picture, painted at around the same time. The...
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