 Hello everybody, welcome to Barn's Takeout, your daily serving of art. I'm Robin Quarren, Collections Research Coordinator at the Barnes Foundation. Today, I'm going to talk to you about this painting right here. It's on the south wall of Room 5. I want you to remember the size of this painting when we look at it a bit further. So I told you to think about the size. So even though it's a very small painting, it really kind of gives off this sense of monumentality. And it has this really interesting framing device, which is very architectural. It has these columns here and this framing. And we're seeing it from kind of off to the left from a particular kind of vantage point as if we're supposed to be seeing it from that viewpoint. Part of that is because this painting is actually a modello, which is a small oil sketch for a larger tapestry. It would have actually been shown in reverse of this. So this figure right here would have actually been on this side and these would have been over here. Tapestry was one of the most luxurious and prized art forms during this period. And it was far costlier to create than painting or sculpture. So therefore it in some ways wasn't as common. And I think we kind of forget about it now because of how much they have faded over time or are in much more poorer conditions than their painting or sculpture counterparts. But they would have been these really vibrant, beautiful representations of a beautiful art. So like I said, this is a modello for a tapestry, which is part of a larger series that was commissioned by the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia. She's a Spanish princess, but at the time of the commission, she was the governor general of the Spanish southern Netherlands. She commissioned Peter Paul Rubens, who was a Flemish painter and who was her court painter to her and before that her and her husband. He was also a trusted diplomat of her and he was a knight of the Spanish crown. He devised the plans of these tapestries in his studio in Antwerp and then they were then woven in Brussels, which was her where she her court was. And they were woven by the prominent workshops of Jan Ross, the first and Jacob Hobels, the second. Isabel gave these tapestries as a gift to the Franciscan Monasterio de las Descalces de Arres, which is the convent of the Barefoot Royals, very funny name, in Madrid in the 1620s. She commissioned it probably as early as 1622. She grew up in the Spanish court. She was born in 1566, the eldest daughter of King Philip II, who was a Spanish king and his third wife, Elizabeth de Valois. The king and the royal family actually attended mass in the convent, the church of the convent, which was really kind of treated as the royal chapel. The convent itself was home to many widowed noble women, and what she should take note of and remember later when we talk a bit more about that. So she was actually married rather late in life to her cousin, the Archduke Albert of Austria. He was the fourth son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. When she married him, she brought with her as the dowry, the southern Netherlands, for which she was then appointed co-sovereign with her husband. This was part of a strategy to calm unrest in the region. Spain was Catholic, and the crown wanted to protect and maintain control of the territories from the Protestants who were in the north. So she was really seen as this defender of the Catholic faith in the region. And it was a particularly turbulent time in Europe between Protestants and Catholics. It was a period of the counter-reformations of the Catholics, capturing what the Protestants had said before. But her father put a clause in the dowry. If she and her husband did not produce an heir, the territory would go back to Spanish control. So around this time when she became the co-governor of the Spanish southern Netherlands, Rubens actually became her court painter. So he entered into her life around the time when she became a ruler. She enjoyed a pretty peaceful rule until 1621, when her brother, who was the king of Spain, died. And a treaty which had put a stop to conflict between the Protestants and Catholics ended. And then later that year, her husband died. So as you remember, the control of the region went back to Spanish control. So the new king of Spain, who was her nephew, Philip IV, instructed her to stay there. She actually had requested to return to Madrid, and she wanted to join the Order of the Convent, the Discalsas Reales. But he told her to remain there as governor general of the Spanish southern Netherlands. And this was really done for a specific reason. She was actually relatively popular as a ruler, and it was, like I said, a time of particular unrest. So she was seen as an important figure in maintaining Spanish and Catholic control of the region. So instead, since she wasn't able to actually return, she commissioned this tapestry series, which can really be seen as a showcase of her devotion to the Catholic faith. And it being in a church, the church of the convent, which she would have liked to have joined, and which the royal family went to, it was like a symbol of her as well. She actually did join a secular Franciscan order and wore a habit, like wore the clothing of a nun the rest of her life. So she was a very pious woman. So this series is called The Triumph of the Eucharist, and its imagery glorifies the Catholic Church. It really sought to express the church's triumph over heresy, a major theme of the counter-reformation period. They really reflect this dynamic relationship between Isabel and her court painter Rubens. And Rubens did a really beautiful job of showcasing the imagery and the iconography of these scenes. The tapestries would have been hung in the church. It was a rather austere church at the time. And so it would have decorated the church during Eucharistic feasts, and they would have been hung on the walls likely. And they would have shown these really beautiful figural compositions like this one, and these illusionistic architectural frames. And they would have been on multiple levels, most likely. The main tapestries of the series, for which this one is not one of those, it's a smaller, part of a smaller series within the series. So the largest ones were over 16 feet tall and 24 feet long, so very big. And there were 11 of those. And they would have covered the side walls of the church and possibly the Presbytery. And they had a lower row and a top row, like I said. The lower row features Tuscan columns and had a more level viewpoint. So it has the implication that they were meant to be seen kind of more at eye level or close to that. And they included Old Testament prefigurations of the Eucharist. The upper level had a vantage point, which suggested that you're meant to see it from below. And those featured Solomonic columns. They had really dramatic scenes of the victory of truth over heresy, and the victory of the Eucharist over idolatry, among others. So they were these very triumphant scenes. So on the wall opposite the altar, there would have been five smaller scenes. They also had upper and lower registers, featuring the same Tuscan and Solomonic columns. But this one is, they think, probably would have been hung above those. So kind of like at the center, it has different columns, Tuscan, not quite Solomonic, that differ from the other ones in that smaller series. And so that kind of suggests that it would have been above. There's also a sketch by Rubens of what we assume he would have wanted them all to look like. This one is not shown in it, but the scene right below, where they think it may have been, has these same columns. These scenes show sacred and secular figures in adoration of the Eucharist. So this painting shows, let's talk about it and let's dig a bit deeper. This actually shows the King David. He is an Old Testament figure. You'll know him from the story of David and Goliath when he killed Goliath during a battle with the Philistines when he was in his youth. But he was also the second king of Israel. The first king, Saul, was showing, was failing in the eyes of the prophet Samuel. So he actually anointed David as the next king of Israel. But that happened much later in life after his triumph over Goliath. And a series of events. David is often shown with a harp or a lyre like he is here. And that's because he was said to have calmed King Saul's mental and emotional instability by playing this musical instrument, because he was well versed in playing it, in playing musical instruments. But he also angered Saul. Saul became jealous of David and in a rather long and elaborate cat and mouse game he tried, he chased and tried to kill David. But he eventually saw that David was loyal to him and the drop the endeavor. And David, like I said, would later become the second king after Saul and his sons died. And we see this crowd over here, which is another signifier of the fact that this is King David. But we don't see him as he normally would be with Saul. Normally when he's playing the instrument he's shown with King Saul. So he's shown kind of playing the instrument for him like in that story that I told you. But here he's shown presumably in heaven because they're all sitting on these clouds and he's shown with angels and they are holding these sheets of music and really just celebrating him playing this instrument. And like I said, they're framed within this really interesting architectural space. And it's part of this larger series, not as elaborate as some of the other tapestries within the series, but still very important and part of this story of the triumph of the Eucharist. And the whole series can be seen as a representation of an important act of patronage by Isabella, one that shows that she was her true devotion to the Catholic Church. So I hope you enjoyed today's Takeout. That's it for today. To get more daily servings of art, please subscribe to our channel. And as always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. Thank you. And for your support of the Barnes Foundation.