Five Rubens sketches reunited in Gotha after more than 80 years

Five oil sketches by Peter Paul Rubens are on display together again in Gotha after more than 80 years. Rubens made them as designs for ceiling paintings in an Antwerp church that were later destroyed by fire.

The sketches were lost during the Second World War: two returned in 1958, while three were unlawfully removed from the collection and sold in 1945. One of the works, “Saint Augustine”, is on loan from the E.G. Bührle Collection in Zurich. The exhibition at Gotha’s Ducal Museum runs from 10 November 2026 to 9 May 2027.