Saint Bonaventura reading in a book

This depiction of Saint Bonaventura reading, attributed to Rubens with a date of 1700, falls sixty years after the master's death and belongs to the vast posthumous Rubenesque tradition that flourished across Flanders and beyond into the eighteenth century. Saint Bonaventura — the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian, philosopher, and cardinal who reconciled Franciscan mysticism with scholastic rigor — was a subject Rubens himself treated in devotional works for Franciscan patrons during the 1620s and 1630s. His genuine treatments of scholarly saints show the intense psychological concentration he brought to devotional portraiture: absorbed figures, strong directional light, the tactile reality of manuscripts and books. Works like this later picture in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille circulated under Rubens's name throughout the eighteenth century as his posthumous reputation grew; dealers and collectors in that century, lacking systematic catalogues of his authentic work, applied his name generously to works of the Flemish Counter-Reformation tradition. The painting represents the continued vitality of Rubens's iconographic legacy long after his death.

The depiction of the saint reading likely employs the devotional half-figure format common in Flemish altarpiece panels, with warm Rubenesque coloring and the saint's Franciscan brown habit contrasting with the brilliant light falling on the open book.