(Leiden 1556–1629 Brussels)
The Roman Emperor Nero,
inscribed lower centre: NERO,
oil on panel, 73 x 56 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Paris

Prior to its most recent restoration, the present painting bore the apocryphal inscription “Nero. 6” in the grey stone parapet near the lower margin. This is proof that the work formed part of a series of portraits of Roman emperors. Two further (incomplete) series of portraits of Roman emperors have survived, consisting of eleven and fifteen portraits respectively (now in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and formerly with the Belgian art dealer Axel Vervoordt). The pictures in Stuttgart have traditionally been attributed to the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, whereas the Vervoordt series has been considered a work by Rubens’s teacher, Otto van Veen. Both series were executed in Antwerp in the final decades of the sixteenth century and are closely related to the present Nero.

In the Northern and Southern Netherlands, series of portraits of Roman emperors enjoyed great popularity in the late sixteenth century. They were mostly based on Titian’s now lost series of emperors executed for the Duke of Mantua in 1537/38. There existed painted copies of Titian’s series that were kept at the court in Prague, and this is attested to by engravings by Aegidius Sadeler (1622), who relied on such a painted series. Virgil Solis, Marcantonio Raimondi, Martino Rota, and Giovan Battista Cavalieri are known to have engraved similar series. Furthermore, Frans Floris, Hubert Goltzius, Lambert Suavius, and Philips Galle also created imperial portraits, which in many cases were based on Roman coins. Antwerp inventories of the seventeenth century list numerous portraits of Roman emperors – either entire series comprised of twelve portraits or individual examples. A series consisting of eighteen portraits (like those in Stuttgart and with Vervoordt) is only mentioned once, namely in the estate inventory of Charlotte Schenaerts compiled in 1695. In an essay that appeared in Burlington Magazine in 1971 (Rubens’s Roman Emperors), Michael Jaffé dealt with the two series mentioned above, which he regarded as replicas after lost originals by Rubens from the artist’s early period. Hans Vlieghe finally succeeded in assigning the Vervoordt series to Rubens’s teacher, Otto van Veen, corroborating his attribution with convincing arguments. The close relationship between the present portrait of Nero and its counterpart in the Vervoordt series is obvious. The nose, with its characteristic nostrils, the deep-set eyes, and the curly brown hair are identical. Whereas in the Vervoordt painting the beard has been rendered with individual brushstrokes, here it is suggested by hatching executed in the wet paint. The resemblances are so strong that the present Emperor Nero can also be given to Otto van Veen.