Peter Paul RubensFlemish, 1577–1640Neptune Calming the Tempest
Can I see it?
Yes, on view now
Where is “Neptune Calming the Tempest” now? Harvard Art Museums, Gallery 2300, floor 2, European Art, 17th–19th century, Cambridge. Yes, on view now. Checked September 29, 2026.
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
This elaborate oil sketch, or modello, was created for the “triumphal entry” of Cardinal Infante Ferdinand into Antwerp, a spectacular procession featuring music, theater, and enormous painted tableaus enlarged from Rubens’s sketches. Cities in the Netherlands traditionally staged these events as a formal welcome for a new ruler. Ferdinand, Archbishop of Toledo and brother of King Philip IV of Spain, succeeded his late aunt, the Archduchess Isabella, as governor of the southern Netherlands. The Antwerp magistrates turned to Rubens to plan the elaborate pageant that welcomed Ferdinand into their city in January 1635. His protracted journey from Spain was delayed by storms when his fleet attempted to sail from Barcelona to Genoa. Rubens’s modello celebrates Ferdinand’s safe crossing by drawing a flattering comparison between this incident and a passage in Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Neptune rises from the sea to calm the winds threatening Aeneas’s fleet.
Harvard Art Museums
Details
- Accession number
- 1942.174
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In the life of Peter Paul Rubens
The whole life1635
Purchase of the Castle at Elewijt, Title of Lord
With the acquisition in 1635 of the castle at Elewijt (the Het Steen estate near Antwerp), Rubens received the title of lord of the manor; he spent much time there, and his late landscapes are associated with the place.
1635
Decorations for the Entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand
Rubens directed the creation of the ephemeral decorations for the ceremonial entry into Antwerp of the new governor, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria.
1 March 1637
Son born: Peter Paul Rubens III
