Circle of Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577-1640 Antwerp)

A copy after a drawing in the British Museum (inv. 1858,0724.2), which has the same Richardson provenance. The same bust-length figure of Seneca appears in a closely-related painting by Rubens in the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp (M. van der Meulen, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. XXIII: Rubens Copies after the Antique, II, 1994, fig. 227), and Lucas Vorsterman later engraved the composition in reverse (British Museum, inv. R,4.78). This particular Seneca 'type' found in Rubens's works derived ultimately from the celebrated antique statue, now in the Vatican, which in the seventeenth century was thought to represent the philosopher dying in his bath, but which has since been identified as depicting an African fisherman.