The Five Senses is a set of five allegorical paintings created in Antwerp between 1617 and 1618 by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens. The series is housed in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.
Collaboration and Technique
The paintings represent a collaborative effort between the two Flemish artists, who were close friends. Brueghel was responsible for the elaborate settings and still-life details, while Rubens painted the allegorical female figures. Each work is executed in oils on wood panel, measuring approximately 65 by 110 centimetres (2 ft 2 in × 3 ft 7 in).
The Five Paintings
The series consists of:
- Sight (1617) — A female figure contemplates a painting of Christ restoring sight to a blind man, surrounded by a cabinet of curiosities filled with paintings, antique busts, objets d'art, and scientific instruments.
- Hearing (1617–1618) — A female figure plays a lute among a collection of musical instruments and clocks.
- Smell (1617–1618) — A female figure sits among flowers in a garden, with a perfume distillery visible on the left.
- Taste (1618) — A female figure sits at a banquet table eating an oyster while a satyr fills her glass.
- Touch (1618) — A female figure embraces a putto in an armoury equipped with weapons and medical instruments.
Artistic Significance
The allegorical representation of the five senses as female figures had precedents in earlier art, notably the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries (c. 1500). However, Brueghel was the first to illustrate the theme using assemblages of artworks, musical instruments, scientific instruments, and military equipment, accompanied by flowers, game, and fish. This approach was widely copied in later Flemish painting.
Provenance
The first known owner was Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg, who presented the series in 1634 to the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria. Ferdinand subsequently offered them to his brother, King Philip IV of Spain, who hung them in the reading room at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. The paintings later became part of the founding collection of the Prado Museum in 1819. It has been suggested that Archduke Albert VII of Austria and his wife Isabella, governors of the Spanish Netherlands, originally commissioned the set, as many details in the paintings refer to them.
