A group of men out on a lion hunt are now being hunted themselves. In this brown monochrome sketch, Rubens – famously an accomplished painter of horses – has masterfully captured the movement of the rearing horses and thrusting spears, and the terrified faces of the men as they struggle to fend off the attacking lion.
The lion appears doubly enraged and desperate following the killing of his lioness, whose dead body lies speared on the right. The hunters, too, have lost one of their party: a dead man lies stretched out under the grey horse. Rubens has presented a moment of both balance and anticipation of change: who will win, man or beast? The surviving lion is outnumbered, and a faintly rendered figure hints at the eventual outcome. This man advances, his eyes trained on the lion’s head, his arm – and possibly a weapon – held aloft.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Gregory Martin, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Flemish School: circa 1600–circa 1900’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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