Study for Balthazar

about 1609–1611 · Drawing · 54 × 47.3 cm

May one see it?

Yes, receiving visitors

J. Paul Getty Museum

Los Angeles, United States

RoomMuseum East Pavilion, Gallery E203

On public display.

Checked: yesterday
In this state since: Oct 5, 2026
Source: The museum's own collection data

On the map Museum page

About the work

Before Rubens completed a large-scale painting The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado; 1609, repainted 1628–29), he made this oil sketch to establish the expression of Balthazar, the Black African king in the scene. Balthazar’s sidelong look, his partly open mouth, and the careful modeling of the face and elaborately draped turban create a powerful, lifelike presence. Current scholarship suggests Rubens relied on an unidentified Black servant or enslaved person in Antwerp to help envision the biblical character. As such, the portrayal carries with it complicated stories about power, faith, and race in seventeenth-century Europe.

J. Paul Getty Museum

Particulars

Accession number: 2018.48

In the catalog

Drawings & watercolors Oil Baroque 17th century Flemish

Sources

J. Paul Getty Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched yesterday
Image: J. Paul Getty Museum — Open Content

Meanwhile, in the life of Peter Paul Rubens

The whole life

July 1600 – 5 May 1608 · Workplace
Mantua
1606–1608
Commission for the High Altar of the Chiesa Nuova
With the assistance of Cardinal Jacopo Serra, Rubens received his most important commission to date — the high altar of the fashionable new Roman church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova); the first version had to be replaced by a second on three slate panels.
28 October 1608
Departure from Italy Forever
Having finished the commission for the Oratorians, Rubens left Rome without permission on 28 October 1608, hurrying to his ailing mother; despite promises to return to Mantua, he never went back to Italy.
3 October 1609
Married: Isabella Brant
8 October 1609
Marriage to Isabella Brant
The 32-year-old Rubens married the 18-year-old Isabella Brant, niece of his brother's wife and daughter of the humanist and city secretary Jan Brant; the marriage produced three children.
9 January 1610
Court Painter to the Archducal Couple
After being presented at court in August 1609, Rubens received his patent as court painter to Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella; at the same time he secured the right to remain working in Antwerp rather than Brussels, and to be paid a fee for each painting.