Ein Wald in der Morgendämmerung mit einer Hirschjagd

In 1635 Rubens bought a manor south of Antwerp called Het Steen, and with it the country pastime of hunting, which in those days only landowners were allowed to enjoy. This forest scene comes straight out of that new life. Dawn is breaking through the trees, the sun a thick smear of paint low among the branches, and a hunter in a red coat drives his hounds after a fleeing deer. Rubens made only about three dozen landscapes in his whole career, nearly all of them late and for his own walls. He treats the chase less as sport than as the forest waking, light against the last of the dark. The support is oak, worked wet and fast.