Winter: The Interior Of A Barn By Rubens At The Queen Gallery In London England Editorial Image

This scene is a rare example of Rubens exploring the mundane technology of farming, and as such it belongs with his Prodigal Son of 1618, and a group of drawings of farm labourers, apparently observed from life. Rubens’s Prodigal Son is a powerful treatment of the biblical subject, not just an excuse to paint a farmyard and it is tempting to look for something similar here. In a general way a depiction of a barn in winter is reminiscent of the Nativity. There are other allusions which suggest that Rubens wishes to encourage us to explore the meaning of the figures in this scene: the boy blowing on a coal refers to a lost antique painting by Lycius, pupil of Myron, and made famous through Pliny’s description of a boy blowing a dying fire