The Union of Earth and Water (Antwerp and the Scheldt)

The Union of Earth and Water (c. 1618) is an allegorical work whose immediate political resonance for Rubens's patrons in Antwerp was unmistakable: the city's economic lifeline was the Scheldt River, whose access to the sea had been closed by the Dutch Republic since the 1585 Union of Utrecht, and the allegorical union of earth goddess and sea god represented the city's desperate wish for the reopening of the river to commercial navigation. Rubens, who was deeply involved in diplomatic efforts to broker peace between Spain and the Dutch Republic as a precondition for Antwerp's economic recovery, brought to this subject both personal concern and political sophistication. The allegorical vocabulary — Cybele as personification of the land, Neptune as the sea, their union symbolizing the commercial marriage of river and ocean — allowed political content to be expressed through the dignified medium of classical mythology rather than direct petition. The Hermitage's holding preserves this unusual document of the intersection between Rubens's artistic and diplomatic careers, where personal political engagement gave mythological allegory a specificity unusual in his more generically classical subjects.

The composition brings together two monumental nude figures representing earth and water in a dynamic embrace. Rubens' warm, luminous flesh painting and the rich surrounding attributes of both elements create a powerful allegorical image of abundance and harmony.

This allegorical painting celebrating Antwerp's prosperity has been in the Hermitage collection. Conservation has addressed the typical challenges of large-format 17th-century canvases. The painting has been relined and cleaned, with the robust flesh tones and rich color palette well-preserved.