ABSTRACT
In December of 1609, Peter Paul Rubens, a 32-year-old bachelor, abruptly returned to Antwerp following eight transformative years of artistic study and practice in Rome, Genoa, Mantua, Verona, and various Italian courts and cities in between. Despite the reciprocity of their body language, Rubens's baby Jesus makes no physical contact with Mary. Clearly, Rubens sought an alternative to the earthier nursing Madonnas shown in media res by his near contemporaries Agostino Carracci, El Greco, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Jusepe de Ribera. Scholars have long recognized a change in Rubens's style after the completion of the Michelangelesque altarpiece known as the Raising of the Cross, likely finished ca. Rubens produced the first of what would ultimately number four versions of the Roman Charity in 1612. The tropological conceit of Roman Charity of the adult male receiving sustenance from the young mother resonates well with the Bernardine lactation imagery, so long a fixture of Franco-Burgundian piety.
