The Museo Nacional del Prado has installed “Rubens’s workshop” next to the Central Gallery

On display in Room 16B of the Villanueva Building until 16 February 2025 and benefiting from the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid, this exhibition features more than 30 works including paintings executed by Rubens himself, works by his assistants and others resulting from different degrees of collaboration between them.

Through the figure of Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most prolific and successful painters of the Early Modern age, the exhibition aims to reveal how European artists produced their paintings in workshops, making use of numerous collaborators. 

Shown alongside these paintings is a recreation of Rubens’s workshop which includes all the tools he needed for his artistic activities: canvases and panels, easels, brushes, pigments and binders, palettes and mahlsticks, as well as various elements that evoke the painter himself, such as a cloak and hat inspired by portraits of him.

The exhibition also features a video which recreates the way in which Rubens and his assistants executed a painting.

European painters of the Early Modern age undertook their professional activities in workshops, making use of numerous collaborators. This exhibition, curated by Alejandro Vergara, Senior Curator of Flemish Painting and Northern Schools at the Museum, focuses on that of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), which was one of the most prolific and successful.

On display are paintings executed by Rubens himself, works by his assistants and others resulting from different degrees of collaboration between them. The chance to see these works side by side enables visitors to discern their different levels of quality. Although all the works created in Rubens’s workshop were the products of his “brand”, both he and his contemporaries valued the originals painted entirely by his hand more than those produced by the workshop. In order to immerse visitors in the space where Rubens executed his paintings, a curtain leads into Room 16B where, in addition to the paintings that comprise the exhibition, there is a display of tools, materials, furniture and other items characteristic of a painter’s activities - brushes, palettes, canvases, panels, easels and mahlsticks - as well as various elements that evoke the artist himself, such as a cloak and a hat made by the milliner Ana Lamata, inspired by portraits of him.

To further develop the exhibition’s argument and focus in depth on Rubens’s working methods and the use he made of his collaborators, the gallery housing the exhibition also features a video in which the painter Jacobo Alcalde Gibert recreates the process behind the execution of Rubens’s painting Mercury and Argus using historical materials and techniques. The video explains how Rubens painted and how he made use of his studio assistants.

In addition, the book Rubens’s Workshop has been published to accompany the exhibition. It includes texts which explain how paintings of the time were executed in phases by superimposing different layers, so that each one of them determined the effect produced by the next one. This system allowed work to be divided, as one artist could paint some of the layers and then be substituted by another.