Rubens’s Portrait of a Man as the God Mars in Brussels ahead of New York auction
It is not something that happens every day but in May a real Peter Paul Rubens is being auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York. The Portrait of a Man as the God Mars is currently in Belgium for the first time in 200 years and is attracting considerable interest says George Gordon (Sotheby’s Master Paintings) (VIDEO).
The work that is expected to fetch between 20 and 30 million US dollars can be viewed for free tomorrow at Sotheby’s in Brussels.
It depicts an unknown gentleman in the God Mars’s outfit: a lion’s skin coat, a spear, shiny armour as well as a helmet sporting a dolphin’s head that also appears in other works by the baroque master.
The work was painted in 1620 shortly after Rubens’s return from Italy, where he was inspired by the ancients and masters of the ilk of Titian.
Potential buyers are private collectors and museums, but the expected price probably means the work will end up in a private collection.
The Portrait of a Man as the God Mars comes from the Fisch Davidson Collection, a private American collection owned by Mark Fisch and Rachel Davidson. After thirty years of marriage the couple divorced and their collection is now being auctioned.