On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P01660
- Author
- Rubens, Peter Paul (Flemish)
- Title
- Tereus' Banquet
- Chronology
- 1636-1638
- Technique
- Support
- Measures
- 195 cm x 267 cm
- School
- Theme
- Shown
- Yes
- Entrance
- COLECCION REAL
- Procedence
- Royal Collection
Tereus, King of Thrace and wife of
Procne, raped his sister-in-law,
Philomela, cutting out her tongue
in order to avoid being denounced.
But when Philomela weaves a
tapestry, her sister Procne
discovers the atrocious event. In
vengance, she kills Tereus' son,
serving it to him in a macabre
banquet.
The story is based on Ovid's
Metamorphosis (Book VI). Rubens
chose to depict the exact moment
when, after eating the dinner
served to him, the Thracian king
requests his son's presence. At
that moment, the two women, driven
mad in the face of their imminent
vengence, show him the head of the
victim as one more of the plates at
the banquet.
This work is very likely the
cruelest of the mythological scenes
painted by Rubens for the small
palace near Madrid called Torre de
la Parada. Outstanding is this work
is the palatial architecture in the
background, as well as the artist's
highly dramatic rendering of the
bloody scene. As in other paintings
from this series, the figures'
lateral movement helps give the
sensation of violence called for by
this subject.
Location on the map
