Rubens is the greatest Flemish painter of the Baroque era. This magnificent view likely represents the area around his country house, outside Antwerp, which Rubens bought in 1635 for his retirement. Hearty peasants and milkmaids return from the fields; some drive home cattle while others gather hay. Rubens turned to landscape late in his career. Many of the landscapes he painted, including this one, were produced for his own pleasure and enjoyment.

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Rubens: Reuniting The Great Landscapes

The Rainbow Landscape will form the centrepiece of our spring 2021 major exhibition, Rubens: Reuniting the Great Landscapes, in partnership with VISITFLANDERS. For the first time in over two hundred years, this great masterpiece of landscape painting and A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning from the National Gallery will be reunited as part of an exhibition at the Wallace Collection.

Although kept together in Rubens’s own collection, the paintings were brought to London in 1803, and separated for good with The Rainbow Landscape eventually entering the Wallace Collection and A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, the National Gallery collection. Painted as a companion pair, these sweeping panoramic works celebrate the fertile countryside of Brabant, and pay homage to the great Flemish tradition of landscape painting. The visitor to this exhibition will have a unique opportunity to experience these great paintings together and on their own, and to be immersed in their wealth of detail and ambitious scale.

Find out more about Rubens: Reuniting the Great Landscapes

The exhibition will be accompanied by a documentary film, and by a richly illustrated, detailed monograph dedicated to the two paintings, available now from the Wallace Collection shop.