Study for Balthazar

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.

Digital image and text courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.