Massacre of the Innocents (Rubens)

The Massacre of the Innocents is the subject of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting the episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem, as related in the Gospel of Matthew, Ch.2, vs.13-18. The first, measuring 142 x 182 cm, was painted after his return to his native Antwerp in 1608, following eight years spent in Italy.

The lost painting

The first version painted by Rubens dates from around 1611–12. At the end of the seventeenth century, the painting became part of the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna, Austria, along with another Rubens painting, Samson and Delilah. The Forchondt brothers sold both paintings to Hans-Adam I, Prince of Liechtenstein whom they knew through his father Karl Eusebius, Prince of Liechtenstein around 1700. The paintings were given the Liechtenstein family seal and are recorded in the collection until the 19th century, where drawings in 1815 show they hung side by side in the Garden Palace in Vienna.

After being catalogued by Vincenzio Fanti as a Franciscus de Neve (II) in 1767, the Massacre was attributed in an anonymous inventory of the Liechtenstein Collection dated 1780 to one of Rubens' assistants, Jan van den Hoecke, after Rubens. Under that attribution it remained until it was sold to an Austrian family in 1920. It was subsequently loaned in 1923 to Stift Reichersberg, a monastery in northern Austria.

Massacre of the Innocents

The Massacre of the Innocents is the biblical recount of infanticide by Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed King of the Jews. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. In typical Matthean style, it is understood as the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 'A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.'" The number of infants killed is not stated. The Holy Innocents, although Jewish, have been claimed as martyrs for Christianity.

Since all the canonical evidence that such an event occurred is found only in the Gospel of Matthew, New Testament scholars such as Daniel J. Harrington have said that the historicity of the event is "an open question that probably can never be definitively decided." Most recent biographers of Herod deny that the event occurred.

Massacre of the Innocents (Guido Reni)

Massacre of the Innocents is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Guido Reni, created in 1611 for the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, but now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in that same city.

Description

The painting is based on the biblical episode of the Massacre of the Innocents, described in the Gospel of Matthew. The work shows a series of episodes at the same time but is classically composed with each element carefully mirrored by an answering one.

Two killer soldiers, one portrayed from behind while rushing on a screaming woman, and one kneeling towards the mothers with their children, hold knives in the right hand. The mothers are reacting in different ways: one is screaming and attempting to escape the soldiers who has grabbed her hair, another is fleeing towards the right while embracing her child, while another, in the lower left corner, is holding her child on her shoulders; another mother tries to stop a soldier with her left hand, and a kneeling woman is praying towards the sky above the children which have already been slaughtered.