The Sense of Touch
| Object type | Painting |
| Genre | Allegory |
| Date | 1617-1618 |
| Dimensions | 64 x 111 cm |
| Support | Panel |
| Medium | Oil |
| Collaborators | Peter Paul Rubens |
| Our attribution | Jan Brueghel the Elder |
| Other authorities | Ertz 2008-10, #534 Ertz 1979, #328 |
| Location | Madrid, Spain |
| Collection | Museo del Prado |
| Accession numbers | inv. #1398 |
| Series | The Five Senses |
| Tags | Encyclopedic, Senses, Ruins, Rubens, Painting Within A Painting, Nude, Putti, Landscape, Armor |
| External resources | Museo del Prado |
This painting is part of a series of the five sense completed between 1617-1618. Please see:
A loose copy with different armor in the left foreground (panel, 75.5 x 115.5 cm) sold London, Sotheby's, July 8, 1998, #144.
A studio copy on panel (71 x 115 cm) with a clothed Venus in the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, inv. #4945. Foremerly in the Augsburg Gemaldegalerie, cat. 1912, #2443. On this version see Munich 2013, p. 378, cat. #86
Another copy with a clothed Venus (panel, 66 x 108 cm), sold at auction in Vienna (J.C. von Klinkoseh), April 2, 1889, #27. Part of a series, see discussion for The Sense of Hearing.
a copy of the whole series is in a private collection in the United States, attributed to Jan the Younger: sold Paris, Drouot (April 20, 1907, #7)
A version by Jordaens (??) recorded in an engraving by Prenner, "Theatrum Viennae", 1728.
Another copy with quite a few changes at RKD with no further information: in it, the Hell scene is replaced by a hunt and some of the armor has changed position.
While the large painting of Hell at the upper right is a variation of earlier, much smaller works by Jan Brueghel himself, the painting below it is not one of his battle scenes. It is a "Destruction of Senacherib" painted by Ch. Schwarz after Hans von Aachen. Schwarz's painting had been owned by Rudolf II and came to Brussels in ca. 1615-16; Rubens made a drawing after this painting, now in the Albertina. Other paintings on the wall include a Flagellation of Christ, a Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and a small oval genre scene which seems to show a group of men watching a some sort of minor surgery.