King David Playing the Harp, ca. 1616 (ca. 1646 – 1650)

About the Work

After his return from Italy in 1608, Rubens became the most prominent artist in Antwerp. To enable his workshop to cope with the many commissions he received, he produced studies of heads which his assistants could incorporate into a whole variety of pictorial contexts. One such head, intended only for use by the workshop, was the point of departure for this painting. With sections added at the bottom and on the left by Jan Boeckhorst after Rubens’s death, the unsalable study of the head of an old man became a marketable painting of David playing his harp.