Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus (c. 1615-16) at the Capitoline Museums occupies a uniquely appropriate location: the twin founders of Rome, suckled by the she-wolf in the hills above the future city, are displayed in the museum complex built on the very Capitoline Hill where the Senate of Rome governed the world empire their mythological ancestors established. Rubens's treatment combines the foundational myth of Western civilization with the naturalistic animal painting that he could deploy with remarkable authority; the wolf is physically convincing rather than heraldically stylized, the twin infants robustly physical rather than idealized. The painting's placement in the Roman civic museums — the Capitoline collection was established as a public institution by Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, making it one of the oldest public art collections in the world — gives it a civic significance that echoes the foundational story it depicts. The Capitoline's primary Rubens holding is this mythological foundation narrative, a fitting subject for the institution that preserves the memory of Roman civilization.

The composition balances the central group of the she-wolf nursing the twins with the surrounding landscape and figures. Rubens' warm palette and the tender rendering of the infants contrast with the wild quality of the she-wolf.

This founding myth of Rome has been conserved over the centuries. The canvas has been relined. The animal fur textures and infant flesh tones present different conservation challenges that have been addressed through careful cleaning. Some of the forest background has darkened.