Jacob Harrewijn, View of the Rubenshuis in Antwerp

After Rubens’s death, his house did not immediately become a museum. Hendrik Hillewerve was one of the later owners. The clergyman lived there from 1680 until he died in 1694. It was he who commissioned this view of the house from Jacob Harrewijn.

The intention: to showcase the house from its most impressive side. The parts that were built by Rubens are thus prominently highlighted. The print from 1684 depicts the courtyard and garden behind it, as seen through the arches of the portico. On the right, a dog stands like a ‘sentinel’ at the entrance to the elegant studio. The residence on the opposite side of the courtyards looks much more austere.

Harrewijn moved into the garden for his drawing from 1692. Interestingly, the portico is missing from this print. The Amsterdam artist deliberately left it out, choosing instead to depict the studio in all its glory. He captured Rubens’s former sculpture museum in the first of three ‘insets’ at the bottom of the print. Hillewerve, who renovated the house, used this space as a house chapel. A domed roof was added to the spacious bedroom on the right. By then, the garden had also been redesigned. The house’s façade remained unchanged.

In the 1940s, the city council tasked Emiel Van Averbeke with the building’s renovation and reconstruction. In addition to a survey of the building’s history, the city architect also drew on Harrewijn’s prints for the renovation. Although not always structurally correct and sometimes even fantasised, they played an essential part in the restoration of the authentic elements of the Rubens House.