Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder
Spanish Netherlands · Flemish Baroque painting
The story
The Garden of Eden that hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, painted around 1615, carries two signatures. Rubens put in Adam and Eve, sketching them first in thin paint, and Jan Brueghel the Elder filled the garden around them with trees, flowers and animals, all in meticulous detail. The two men were close friends in Antwerp as well as partners, and Rubens was godfather to Brueghel's children.
Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder is the credit for pictures they made together in this way, each in his own speciality, usually the figures by Rubens and the flowers, animals and landscape by Brueghel. It names two independent masters, each responsible for his own part of the panel.
In Munich, the Alte Pinakothek gives this credit to a Madonna set inside a garland of flowers, where Rubens painted the Virgin and the little angels first and Brueghel then added the blooms.
