Rome: two women carry baskets of vegetables across a stream towards the Palatine, followed by a woman with a stick. Engraving by S. à Bolswert after Sir P.P. Rubens.

The painting is described by Adler as follows (left and right have to be reversed for the engraving): "A shallow stream in the foreground, flowing leftwards, separates the viewer from a large hill with Roman ruins: these, and the other structures on the hill, most of which is in the left-hand half of the picture, are seen slantwise. At the near corner of the hill, a low mound on the far side of the stream acts as a repoussoir. Behind the mound, at the foot of the hill, is a carved figure (a river god?) in a semicircular, conch-like coffered niche. The hill, whose top is overgrown with luxuriant trees and bushes, extends from the right background to the left foreground of the picture, dividing it with a long diagonal. The right flank of the hill is extensively covered with walls such as might enclose a park or garden. The left, more foreshortened flank is occupied by the ruins of the Basilica of Maxentius, through whose high arches the coffering of the interior can be seen, lit from the right by the rays of the setting sun, which is low in the sky and invisible to the spectator.

"Apart from the Roman brickwork thus illuminated, the left side of the hill and the entire left of the picture are in evening shadow. On the right flank of the hill a vineyard stretches towards the background past the early Christian church of San Teodoro, originally a round pagan temple. In spite of various discrepancies Rubens's basic model seems to have been the Mons Palatinus in Rome. To the right of the vineyard, in the middle distance, are a shepherd leaning on a stick and a man driving donkeys.

"In the right foreground four women are preparing to wade across the stream to the hill. Two of them are young, sturdy, bare-headed, and painted in stronger colours; one of these, with a basket on her head, is holding up her skirts and is ankle-deep in water. To the right, two more women advance into the picture from the right margin. One is old (she wears a head-covering and, though walking rapidly, uses a stick), the other young and bare-headed: holding up her skirts, she looks back towards the right lower corner of the picture. These two women are in shadow, almost silhouettelike in front of the reflecting water, but the shadow is transparent and they are seen in sufficient detail. The young woman furthest left, who is painted in strong colours, is the most conspicuous human figure owing partly to her position in the extreme foreground, two-thirds of the way across the picture. She has stood her basket on the ground to her left and is seen from behind, holding up her sleeveless dress in front with her right hand. The short sleeves of her white under-garment emerge from under the flame-coloured dress, which forms a bright oblong patch at the crucial point where the last third of the picture begins."--Adler, loc. cit.

The print was copied and published by Gaspar Huberti or Huijbrechts (1619-1684) later in the 17th century, with the following legend, according to Adler, op. cit.: "Non via solicitis, non est gravis unda puellis sic breve spes lucri, sic bene steruit iter, hinc piger aeternus ut opes caelumque lucreris, Vim potitur caeli gloria disce pati.". An edited version of these two elegiac couplets might read, "Non via sollicitis, non est gravis unda puellis; / Sic breve spes lucri, sic bene sternit iter. / Hinc, piger, aeternas ut opes caelumque lucreris, / Vim potitur caeli gloria: disce pati.", which could be translated into English as "The road is not difficult for those stirred up, the water is not difficult for the girls [to cross]. / The hope of profit smoothes out the journey so that it is both brief and easy. / Hence, idler, so that you may earn eternal wealth and [enter] heaven, / [Know that] honour obtains the force of heaven: learn to suffer." The old woman with the stick who hurries down the hill towards the stream is one of the "sollicitis" (motivated) who do not find the way difficult, and the "puellae" who have no problem with the water are the two younger women in and near the stream. The Palatine and the coffered basilica beyond the stream represent the reward for those who strive. The herdsman looking after a flock of goats, the vineyard, the church, and the light that pours across the sky, all suggest Christian similes

Antuerpiae [Antwerp] : Gillis Hendricx excudit, [1638?]

1 print : engraving ; platemark 34.6 x 45.5 cm

Pet. Paul Rubbens pinxit Romae. S. à Bolswert sculpsit "The present picture can only have been painted several years after Rubens's return from Italy. ... The idea that the Louvre painting was executed in Rubens's Italian period is based on the annotation Pet. Paul Rubbens pinxit Romae on later impressions of the Bolswert engraving"--Adler, op. cit. pp. 67-68

Wolfgang Adler, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol. XVIII, Landscapes and hunting scenes; part I: Landscapes, London 1982, no. 16 ("Landscape with the ruins of the Palatine"), copy 2, pp. 66-69

Wellcome Collection 3063514i

After a painting by Rubens in the opposite direction in the Musée du Louvre--Adler, loc. cit.