This portrait of Mulay Ahmad, the ruler of Tunis, is a rare 17th-century portrayal of an African sovereign. But it’s not a portrait from life. Rubens based the painting on an earlier work by Jan Vermeyen, who traveled to North Africa in 1535 on a military campaign led by the Holy Roman Emperor.
Rubens clearly valued this painting, for he kept it his entire life. He used it repeatedly as the model for the African king in paintings of the three kings who travel to Bethlehem to adore the infant Jesus. Rubens’s insistence on an authentic depiction of an African monarch is in keeping with the period’s impulse to discover, describe, and represent the wider world.
The Arts of Golden Age Spain and the Hispanic World 