The Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

This work depicting the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, attributed to Rubens with a date of 1712, must be understood within the complex history of Rubenesque attribution. Rubens died in May 1640, making a 1712 date impossible for an autograph work; the picture is either a later copy after a Rubens original, a posthumous workshop production recorded under the master's name, or a work by a later Flemish painter in the Rubenesque tradition. The subject — church leaders adoring the Eucharist — was central to Rubens's most important Counter-Reformation commission, the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry series he designed for the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia in the 1620s, and the iconographic type was thoroughly established in the Flemish tradition by the end of the seventeenth century. Rubens's reputation grew enormously after his death, and his name was attached to an ever-widening circle of Flemish works by art dealers, collectors, and early cataloguers who lacked rigorous criteria for distinguishing autograph works from copies and school pieces. The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, where this painting is held, acquired many Flemish Baroque works during the late nineteenth century when Rubenesque attributions were common.

The composition would deploy the hierarchical arrangement of churchmen — pope, cardinals, bishops — in devotional attitudes before a monstrance or altar. Whether by Rubens's hand or a close follower, the work maintains the monumental figural authority and rich colorism associated with the Antwerp master's studio.