Museo del Prado

Fiona Healy

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Alexander Vergara

Guy Delmarcel

Friso Lammertse

Annetje Boersma

Peter Paul Rubens. The Life of Achilles highlights just one aspect of Rubens's extensive oeuvre, a series of eight tapestries representing significant episodes from the life of the Greek hero Achilles. The eight oil sketches Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) painted to serve as designs for these remarkable tapestries are among the most beautiful works he produced. The sketches were subsequently worked up by Rubens and his studio and finally used as examples for far larger tapestries. This lavishly illustrated book traces the process from sketch to tapestry and sheds new light on Rubens and his working methods. Book jacket.

The Life of Achilles

Peter Paul Rubens

Carmen Garrido

Herlinda Cabrero

Jaime Garcia-Maiquez

In 1609 Rubens painted a large Adoration of the Magi for the Antwerp Town Hall. The painting made its way to the King of Spain and Rubens, arriving at the Spanish court in 1628, repainted, extended and refashioned the picture to his own satisfaction (incorporating a self-portrait). The painting, now in the collection of the Prado, incorporates a dialogue by the painter himself. The picture has been newly conserved, and following the dialogue has been made easier by the existence of a copy in a private collection of the 1609 version of the much altered work. It has been the fascinating task of Prado curator Alejandro Vergara and the Prado conservation department to investigate the changes Rubens made and their motivation, while Joost vander Auwara provides a new analysis, employing new documents and rereading known ones, of the intentions and iconography of the original Antwerp commission.

Alexander Vergara

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