‘Three Magi’ by Rubens reunited in Washington

A Washington museum is reuniting for the first time in 130 years three paintings of the Magi, or wise men, by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens.

The bust-length portraits of biblical figures Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, painted around 1618, were long separated after being sold at auction in Paris.

The National Gallery of Art hailed the exhibition as a “rare opportunity for visitors to see all three of Rubens’ kings together again.”

Rubens painted the three Magi — who brought gifts to the baby Jesus, according to Christian tradition — for his childhood friend Balthasar Moretus, who was named with his two brothers after the wise men.

The painting believed to be of Balthasar is owned by the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium, while the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico holds the old king believed to be Gaspar and the National Gallery keeps middle-aged Melchior in its collection.

At the time of the commission, the painter’s friend Balthasar Moretus the Elder (1574-1641), headed Plantin Press, the largest publishing house in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.

“At the time, the Adoration of the Magi was a common subject in art, but these intimate paintings take the kings out of their usual narrative setting,” National Gallery director Earl Powell III said in a statement.

“Rubens conjured them as tangible flesh and blood believers.”