The Story
In this oil sketch, the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens illustrated a moment from the ancient Roman poem Metamorphoses for the hunting lodge of King Philip IV of Spain. In the middle of a wedding celebration, the goddess of discord, Eris, has thrown a golden apple into the feast to provoke jealousy.
She succeeds in igniting a competition for the extraordinary fruit between Venus, goddess of beauty, who sits nude in the foreground; Juno, goddess of marriage, who wears a flowing veil at the center; and Minerva, goddess of war, who stands at the left in a helmet. Rubens humanized the gods through robust modeling of their bodies and facial expressions, a choice appropriate to the subject matter, a story of their pride and vanity.
Executed in Oil on panel, measuring 27 × 42.6 cm (10 5/8 × 16 3/4 in.); Framed: 42.2 × 57.8 × 6.4 cm (16 5/8 × 22 3/4 × 2 1/2 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Peter Paul Rubens builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
