Abundância (Abundantia)

Rubens spent the second half of the 1620s away from his studio, on diplomatic missions to Madrid and London, and was knighted in both countries before settling back in Antwerp in 1630. He was 53 and a widower, and that December he married Helene Fourment, who was 16. Around the same time he made this small panel, an oil sketch for a tapestry, with a companion piece showing Justice that is now in private hands. The cornucopia tips its fruit into the woman's lap and two putti gather what spills. Under her foot lies a purse, material wealth set beside the natural kind coming out of the horn. The panel sat in English country houses for two centuries. Japan's cultural affairs agency bought it in 1978 and passed it to the museum in Tokyo the same year.