In the classical tradition, the heroic death of the Roman consul Decius Mus is a frequently cited ‘exemplum virtutis’, an example of an act of particular virtue. Rubens was the first artist to translate this episode from Livy’s account of the Roman war against the Latins in 340 BC into the medium of painting.
In the classical tradition, the heroic death of the Roman consul Decius Mus is a frequently cited ‘exemplum virtutis’, an example of an act of particular virtue. Rubens was the first artist to translate this episode from Livy’s account of the Roman war against the Latins in 340 BC into the medium of painting. The inhabitants of the plains of Latium had risen up against Roman domination and challenged the Romans to battle with an army that by far outnumbered that of their enemy. In the camp near Capua the joint Roman commanders, consuls Decius Mus and Titus Manlius, each had the same dream: the army whose general fell in battle would be victorious. Rubens focuses his narrative on the hero in his cycle of paintings: in the first picture Decius appears on his own before his army in order to relate his dream, with Titus Manlius relegated off-stage. The artist shows Decius Mus standing on a pedestal in imperious pose, with standard-bearers from various units wearing their different kinds of battle dress assembled before him. An oil sketch for the painting preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington shows that Rubens had contemplated enriching the temporal story with allusions to the gods of antiquity by including the eagle of Jupiter hovering over the general’s head like a divine protector. The finished painting, however, dispenses with any such elements of mythological idealization. In terms of the type of depiction, Rubens chose a pictorial formula that was common in classical art, that of the ‘adlocutio’, the military commander speaking to his legates and tribunes from an elevated position. Depictions of this kind are found on Rome’s triumphal monuments, the Arch of Constantine and Trajan’s Column. One of the relief scenes on the latter served Rubens as a direct model. While an advocate of the creative use of antique pictorial inventions, in his essay “De Imitatione Statuarum” he also emphasizes the need for careful interpretation of the originals. He adds that it is advisable “to make judicious use of them, so that no hint of the stone remains”. While Rubens’s translation of the relief scene into the medium of painting preserves its frieze-like character, the symmetrical disposition of the figures in the classical model has here yielded to a lively variation with a wealth of animated motifs, additionally enhanced by the dynamic and painterly brushwork.
Condition and conservation
The canvas for the painting "Decius Mus Relating his Dream" consists of three lengths of fabric sewn together vertically. Remarkably, the textile painting support was not lined (adhered to a secondary canvas support) in the past. This has preserved valuable information about the painting's method of production, history, and provenance. The paint layers of this work are in exceptionally good condition. Compared to the other paintings of the “Decius-Mus cycle”, this painting has a much more open, sketch-like character, not unlike the approach Rubens used when painting preliminary sketches or “modelli”. The paint surface only exhibited localized areas of loose paint and slight losses. The overall image was somewhat obscured by layers of degraded varnish and localized darkened retouchings. After the removal of overpaintings and reduction of the varnish, the colour impression of the painting regained radiance and depth.
The greatest challenge during the restoration was a gaping tear, 60 centimetres long, in the lower right corner of the composition. The length of the tear as well as several older deformations associated with this damage required detailed work under the stereo microscope over several weeks. The missing fabric within the tear area was complemented with individually glued and interwoven threads (consistent with the finely woven, original linen) to restore the mechanical properties of the canvas. Smaller paint losses were filled and subsequently built up with layers of gouache and finished with semi-transparent oil-resin glazes. Surface varnish applications were done by hand and spraying using dissolved natural resins.
Repairing the tear using the thread-by-thread technique