Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 Samson and Dilemma: Rubens Confronts the Woman on Top
- 2 Making Assumptions: Marian Tropes after Italy
- 3 Maria de’ Medici and Isabel Clara Eugenia
- 4 Peace Embraces Plenty: Queering Female Virtue at Whitehall
- 5 All That Depends on Color: Feminizing Rubens in the Seventeenth Century
- Epilogue
- About the Author
- Index
4 - Peace Embraces Plenty: Queering Female Virtue at Whitehall
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 Samson and Dilemma: Rubens Confronts the Woman on Top
- 2 Making Assumptions: Marian Tropes after Italy
- 3 Maria de’ Medici and Isabel Clara Eugenia
- 4 Peace Embraces Plenty: Queering Female Virtue at Whitehall
- 5 All That Depends on Color: Feminizing Rubens in the Seventeenth Century
- Epilogue
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Art historians have long interpreted the intimate coupling of Rubens's Peace Embracing Plenty, a figural group in one of the ceiling canvases of the Whitehall Palace Banqueting House in London, as a representational paraphrase of “Righteousness kissing Peace” (Ps. 85). This chapter's case study offers a more likely and appropriate biblical source for the allegory by placing Rubens's amorous female personifications within the context of Caroline divine-right rhetoric, a quintessential sermon by William Laud, and changing approaches to allegorical representation at the English court. It argues that the scriptural meeting and kissing of virtues provided Rubens with both a notional narrative and an authoritative justification for representing female affection, even same-sex desire, in a political and morally positive light.
Keywords: Rubens; gender; queer; Laud; King James; Queen Elizabeth
I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD. For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good.
‒ Psalm 122, KJVIn the early 1630s Rubens produced nine large canvases for the ceiling of the Whitehall Palace Banqueting House in London (Fig. 4.1). The bustling composition known as the Peaceful Reign of King James I (Fig. 4.2) would have hung directly over the enthroned monarch, Rubens's patron, Charles I. Thus the two Stuart sovereigns, past and present, appeared to visitors from a distance as they entered the cavernous rectangular stateroom, or presence chamber, for an audience with the king. Within the Peaceful Reign the two embracing female figures at left have long been recognized as keys to the proper interpretation of both the scene in which they appear and Rubens's animated allegorical program as a whole.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens , pp. 177 - 208Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020