The Apotheosis of James I by Peter Paul Rubens
After two years of restoration work, one of the largest works ever made by Peter Paul Rubens will be unveiled and made available for public viewing.
Located in Central London, Banqueting House is the only surviving complete section of the Palace of Whitehall. Though the palace had been used as the official royal residence since the time of King Henry VIII, Banqueting House was added much later on the orders of King James I in 1619. As the name would suggest, Banqueting House was mainly used by the monarch for entertaining. When construction was complete, James’s son and successor, Charles I, commissioned the interior decorations. Most notably, the king commissioned Peter Paul Rubens to paint the ceiling of the main banqueting hall.
While the ceiling has nine sections, six are decorated with cherubs and allegorical figures. However, most of the attention is drawn to the three large sections running down the center of the ceiling. The Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland shows Minerva taking the separate crowns of England and Scotland, tying them together as King James looks on from his throne. Above, a pair of cherubs descend to give the king the new coat of arms for his new realm. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died without having had any children. The throne of England, therefore, went to James, her first cousin twice removed, who had reigned as king of Scotland since he was 13 months old. Although England and Scotland would be ruled by the same monarch starting with James, they were technically still independent countries. This would not be changed until the two kingdoms were legally joined as one in 1707.
On the other side of the banqueting hall is the second of the three paintings, The Wise Rule of James I. The king is shown on his throne as a laurel crown is placed on his head. Before him, Minerva, representing wisdom, is shown attacking Mars, representing war. Appropriately, on the left, female allegorical figures representing peace and abundance are shown embracing one another.
In the very center of the ceiling, in a large oval, Rubens created The Apotheosis of James I. The king is guided by a figure bearing thunderbolts and scales, representing divine justice. He ascends into Heaven on the back of an eagle, upwards towards Victory and Britannia holding a laurel crown. It is one of the most succinct representations of the divine right of kings and the monarch’s connection to God. This was something James believed strongly and instilled in his son, Charles. It was likely this belief, that the king was answerable only to God, that led to Charles’s opposition to Parliament’s power and the subsequent English Civil War. Ironically, when Charles lost the war to parliamentary forces and was found guilty of treason, he was led underneath the Rubens paintings and beheaded right outside Banqueting House in January 1649.
The paintings were among the largest Rubens ever painted. They were so large, in fact, that the canvases could not fit into his studio. Instead, he and his assistants and students had to work in the Antwerp commodity exchange and in the refectory of a nearby Carmelite monastery. The canvases were rolled up and shipped to England, where they were laid onto panels and installed in the ceiling in 1636.
Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity that oversees and maintains Britain’s unoccupied Royal residences, started renovations on Banqueting House in May 2024. With the renovations complete, the building is now more accessible and sustainable. In addition to any repairs and cleaning to the Rubens ceiling, restoration workers installed air-source heat pumps on the roof to better control temperature and humidity within the building. The building’s windows were also coated with a film to filter out most infrared radiation, reducing the damage that direct sunlight would cause to the paintings.
Banqueting House will reopen for previews starting on March 20th, with a full public reopening scheduled for August 1st.