5/3/14 - Internet - Le Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, known as the Corpus Rubenianum or even simply the Rubenianum was launched in 1963 after the acquisition of the archives and library belonging to the art historian Jacob Burchard. This monumental editorial entreprise celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year.
The goal is to publish all of Rubens’ work in 26 sections (today extended to 29), each consisting of anywhere from one to six volumes, in the form of a catalogue raisonné classified according to iconographic themes (Old Testament, Saints, Landscapes... and major sites (Torre della Perada, Banqueting Hall...)). So far 15 complete sections have appeared, another 3 partially, resulting in a total of 36 published volumes.
The Corpus Rubenianum is now accessible free of charge and can be downloaded, in PDF format for the 22 volumes published before 2000 (11 of which are out of stock). The most recent ones will be progressively digitized and posted online.
The first volume (as will all of them eventually [1]) also has links to the very extensive database of the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie). This allows immediate access to color photographs for works reproduced only in black and white, and also images of comparable works not illustrated in the original publication. Finally, these links provide access to information such as bibliography and provenance, not available at time of publication.
We would like to point out that this publication is made under licence to Creative Commons [2] which means it can be shared for free and distributed in a non-commercial manner.
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