Getty exhibit explores Rubens-Brueghel bond [audio 4min]

A new exhibition at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles explores the close partnership between two great 17th-century painters, Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. X-ray and infrared studies of the paintings have allowed curators to travel back in time and see the division of labor on the collaborations. Many art historians believe that Rubens played a dominant role in his relationship with Brueghel. But Anne Woollett, an associate curator at the Getty, says the latest scientific studies reveal that the painters' partnership was more creative than that. An X-ray of the painting Mars Disarmed by Venus, for example, confirms that Rubens had painted over some of Brueghel's completed work. Brueghel used lead-based white paint for his finishing highlights, a type of paint that is easily picked up by an X-ray.