A sailor and a woman embracing – Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Modern Painting

Phoebus Focus XV

Rubens expert Nils Büttner analyses the most intimate work of the Antwerp pictor doctus in the collection of The Phoebus Foundation. He discovers many similarities with other works of art by the master.

Nils Büttner (b. 1967) is Professor of Art History at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. He is also a member of the Centrum Rubenianum and of the editorial board of the Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, the catalogue raisonnée of Peter Paul Rubens. He specialises in the extensive artistic output of fifteenth-, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany and the Low Countries and the broader cultural context in which it arose. His impressive list of publications embraces a series of important masters in the artistic canon, including Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt.