(Münster circa 1604–1668 Antwerp)
A study for the Head of Saint Hubert,
oil on canvas, 55.5 x 45 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium, 2018

The present head study, made for The Conversion of Saint Hubert which still hangs in the Church of Saint Michael in Ghent is a touching portrayal from Jan Boeckhorst’s mature period, and provides vivid insight into the working methods of one of Peter Paul Rubens’s most accomplished pupils. The larger composition for which the present study was made tells the legend, first recorded in the High Middle Ages, of the nobleman Hubert, who following the death of his wife in childbirth, retreated to the Ardennes forest to live a life of solitary hunting. He had a spiritual conversion when a stag appeared before him with a cross miraculously shining between its antlers and a divine voice spoke to him. The flowing locks and ruddy complexion of the saint in the present study is a remarkable testament to the practice of Rubens’s workshop of using tronies, or studies of characters for re-use in larger compositions. Indeed, the same model was used by Boeckhorst’s studio colleague Anthony van Dyck in his Study for the head of Saint John (sold at Sotheby’s, London, 19 September 2019, lot 126).

Born in Münster, Boeckhorst moved to Antwerp as a seventeen-year old where he joined the workshops of Rubens, and possibly also collaborated with Jacob Jordaens. Becoming a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, Boeckhorst originally worked in the style of his master, Rubens, before coming closer to the style of van Dyck in the 1650s, and the present work was likely executed during this mature period. Two preparatory drawings of the larger work in Saint Michael’s church are known, one in the collection of the Earl of Edgcumbe, and another (present whereabouts unknown) showing the same model of the kneeling saint beside a different horse (see M. Galen, Johann Boeckhorst : Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Hamburg 2012, pp. 354-55, cat. nos. Z.76 & 77, illustrated).