Peter Paul Rubens & Jan Brueghel the Elder-The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Adam and Eve,1615. Figures by Rubens, landscape and animals by Bruegel

Imagine, say, one leading novelist telling another, “You write the narrative and I’ll do the dialogue.” Or two composers agreeing to divide up an operatic score, one doing the orchestration, the other writing the arias and ensembles.

Impossible? Perhaps not. In the early 17th century, two of the Southern Netherlands’ most admired painters put aside any vanity to profit from each other’s strengths. In a remarkable series of religious and mythological canvases, Peter Paul Rubens painted the figures and Jan Brueghel the Elder the landscapes, flora and fauna.

In fact, in their day, this was not unusual. In the Flemish School, painters often specialized in genres and then teamed up when compositions called for mixed genres. On one occasion in Antwerp, no fewer than 12 artists were commissioned to paint two oils. At different times, both Rubens and Brueghel also worked with other artists.

The Art of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder - The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Adam and Eve, 1615. Figures by Rubens, landscape and animals by Brueghel. Oil on panel. Mauritshuis.

Their partnership was nonetheless special. In other collaborations, there was usually one senior and one junior artist. Here the two men were not only close friends and neighbors, but they also enjoyed equal prestige in the eyes of the Hapsburg court in Brussels. From 1598 to Brueghel’s death in 1625 they painted at least 24 works together.

“Rubens and Brueghel: A Working Friendship,” a show at the Mauritshuis in The Hague through Jan. 28, explores this fusing of talents through a dozen jointly executed paintings. These are displayed alongside another 17 works, which illustrate their work as individuals and with other artists. The exhibition was organized with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it was shown last summer.

Of the two artists, Rubens clearly stands taller today. But when they first joined forces to paint “The Battle of the Amazons” (1598-1600), Rubens was very much a newcomer to Antwerp, while Brueghel — nine years his senior and heir to the name and fame of his father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder — was already well established.

The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (detail) by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1615.

Then, in 1600, Rubens began a long sojourn in Italy, which would transform his art and his reputation. When he returned to Antwerp nine years later, he was appointed court painter to Albert and Isabella, the Spanish regents of the Southern Netherlands, and he soon set up a workshop with an ever-growing legion of young artists as his assistants.

By all accounts, this is when Rubens’s earlier acquaintance with Brueghel blossomed into a close friendship. Rubens became godfather to two of Brueghel’s children. He also wrote letters in Italian on behalf of his colleague to Brueghel’s patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo of Milan; for this favor, Brueghel jokingly referred to him as “my secretary.”

The Mauritshuis Museum video: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man, c. 1615

A surfeit of commissions may have smoothed away any sharp edges of rivalry: both painters had more work than they could handle. So, while their studios were kept busy, they apparently viewed collaboration — with each other and with other artists — as the best way to increase their productivity.

Further, such was their renown that works carrying joint attribution assumed an inflated value: each painter was, after all, the unchallenged Flemish master in his own genre. They were also hard workers, in Rubens’s case even finding time for politics and diplomacy too.

It is not known whether they worked in each other’s studios or whether unfinished canvases were carried in frames between their nearby workshops. A logical division of labor was nonetheless established in “The Battle of the Amazons,” where Rubens painted the teeming figures in the lower half of the oil and Brueghel composed the landscapes and skies stretching above them.

The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (detail) by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1615.

Researchers have also been able to distinguish Rubens’s thick brushstrokes from Brueghel’s more delicate, even intimate, style. And from this observation, along with underdrawings detected through X-rays, they have concluded that in most cases Brueghel designed the painting and may even have suggested its theme.

This was apparently true of “The Return From War: Mars Disarmed by Venus,” an oil painted in 1610-12, which the Getty Museum bought in 2000.

In this case Brueghel created the staging for Rubens’s sensual figures: he painted a long ruined vault with a forge, an artillery piece and cast-off armor before Rubens introduced the naked Venus, her warrior hero and several Cupids. Interestingly, researchers have found that Rubens painted over some of Brueghel’s work — which Brueghel then restored.

The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (detail) by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1615.

“All in all, it would appear that collaboration between the two painters in this early stage was not yet entirely streamlined,” notes a pamphlet accompanying this show.

A few years later, in “The Garden of Eden With the Fall of Man,” the artists worked in total harmony. This is also the only work that carries both their names: “PETRI PAVLI RVBENS FIGR” at the lower left and “IBRVEGHEL FEC” at the lower right. These inscriptions in turn confirm that Rubens painted the figures (“FIGR”), while Brueghel “made” (“FEC”) the work.

Examination of the oil indicates that Rubens painted Adam and Eve along with a brown horse and the Garden of Eden’s infamous snake, while Brueghel created what was known as a “landscape paradise” of animals at rest and play. One result is that while the naked Adam and Eve provide narrative, the eye is constantly drawn to Brueghel’s exquisite menagerie.

A similar tension between people and place is apparent in their “Pan and Syrinx” and, even more, in their “Flora and Zephyr,” where Brueghel’s wild flowers are arranged as if posing for a still life. In contrast, in their “Vision of Saint Hubert,” Brueghel’s proud stag stands at stage center; a light and a crucifix appearing between its antlers prompt Hubert’s conversion.

The best-known collaboration between these artists, however, is their portrayal of the Five Senses, and the Prado Museum in Madrid, which owns the five oils, has lent “Allegory of Taste” to this show. Thought to be a homage to princely wealth, this painting depicts a palace and gardens in the background, while hunted animals and old paintings (including a reproduction of one by Brueghel) surround a table where Taste, in the form of a woman, is poured wine by a satyr.

The case is made that no documentary record of the Rubens-Brueghel partnership exists because it was considered totally normal at the time. Indeed, this show also includes works by Brueghel and Rubens’s workshop, as well as two striking mythological paintings — “The Head of Medusa” and “Prometheus Bound” — by Rubens and Frans Snyders.

Certainly, work never disrupted the friendship between Rubens and Brueghel. When Brueghel died, Rubens became the executor of his will as well as guardian to his younger children. And when Brueghel’s oldest son, Jan Brueghel the Younger, took over his father’s studio, he also worked with Rubens. Among 17th-century Flemish artists, it seems, two was never a crowd.

The Art of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder - The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Adam and Eve, 1615. Figures by Rubens, landscape and animals by Brueghel. Oil on panel. The Mauritshuis

The painting depicts the moment just before the consumption of forbidden fruit and the fall of man.

Adam and Eve are depicted beneath the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where various fruits grow. On the opposite side the tree of life is depicted, also laden with fruits. The scene is a reference to Genesis 2:8–14. A monkey biting an apple to the left symbolizes sin. The sanguine monkey next to Adam is the hotspur who cannot resist temptation, while the choleric cat near Eve's heels represents cruel cunning. In Christian symbolism, several grapes in the foliage behind Adam and Eve represent Christ's death on the cross, as wine represents his blood.

Courtesy The Mauritshuis