The Brazen Serpent

The Brazen Serpent is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens that the catalogue data dates to 1638, although the reference texts place it more broadly between about 1635 and 1640. It is held at the National Gallery in London and belongs to religious art. Its subject comes from the Book of Numbers (21:6-9) in the Old Testament. In that account, the Israelites wandering in the desert complain against Moses and are bitten by venomous serpents. God then instructs that a bronze serpent be raised on a pole, and those who look at it are saved. The scene thus joins collective suffering with the moment of deliverance, a contrast the picture expresses through the bodies of the afflicted and the gaze turned toward the symbol that saves them.

As for how it was made, the sources point to workshop participation. Rubens's students may have blocked in the composition from a modello, a preparatory design by the master himself, and Rubens then worked up the result to its finished state. This method of collaboration helps explain how large-scale works were produced in his studio.

The precise attribution of each hand should be treated cautiously, since specialists do not always agree on it. What can be said with confidence is that this is a sizeable religious painting whose interest lies both in the biblical episode it depicts and in what it reveals about Rubens's working practices and his studio.

Painter

Peter Paul Rubens

Date

1638

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

186 × 264 cm

Museum

National Gallery, London

Genre

religious art

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