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Europe turns a last glance at her companions, who are located outside the composition, as Jupiter carries her away. The god was profoundly enamored of her and transformed into a bull in order to appro [+]
Orpheus descends into the Underworld to recover his wife, Eurydice, who died after being bitten by a serpent. Pluto and Proserpina, the god and goddess of the underworld, are so moved by the music of [+]
Humanity´s rebirth after the flood is represented in Greek mythology through the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha. After surviving the disaster, they threw stones over their shoulders, each of which beca [+]
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-470 B.C.), wears a black tunic and leans on a stone, weeping. He embodies the idea of a tragic sense of life, thinking about the future form a lonely [+]
Fearing she was a victim of infidelity, Procris followed her beloved Cephalus to a clearing in the woods, where he was resting during a hunting expedition. The young woman´s jealousy led her to her de [+]
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 discove [+]
Proserpine, daughter of the earth goddess Ceres, was kidnapped by Pluto, the god of the underworld. Despite the resistance put up by Minerva, Venus and Diana, their relationship would blossom into lov [+]
Like Fortuna (P1674) and the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (P1634), the Rape of Hippodamia was part of the massive cycle of mythologies designed by Peter Paul Rubens in 1636-37 for the Torre de la Par [+]
In classical mythology, Silenus was the guardian of forests. He was supposed to raise Bacchus when the latter was a child. Rubens depicts him in the customary manner: with goat ears and a scraggly bea [+]
Democritus of Abdera (460-370 B.C.) is the pictorial pendant of Heraclitus (P01680) as well as his philosophical counterpoint. Wearing bright colors, he laughs sarcastically while contemplating a glob [+]
Recognizable by the crescent-moon-shaped diadem on her head, Diana hunts deer with spears and dogs, accompanied by various nymphs. The extremely horizontal composition is one of the peculiarities of t [+]
Jupiter was so taken with Ganymede´s beauty that he transformed into an eagle to carry him off to Mount Olympus, where he became his cup-bearer. Rubens drew this story from the classical poet, Ovid´s [+]
According to Ovid´s Metamorphosis, Vertumnus had to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain Pomona´s love. Rubens chose to depict the moment when, having removed his disguise, Vertumnus declares [+]
In his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells of the moment when the Harpies, monstrous beings that were half bird and half woman, were pursued and killed by two of the Argonauts that accompanied Jason. On this pa [+]
In the autumn of 1636, Peter Paul Rubens was commissioned by agents of Philip IV to produce his largest series of painted canvases to decorate the recently completed hunting lodge at El Pardo, near Ma [+]
The mythological hero fights against the fearful three-headed dog that guards the Underworld while two figures, possibly the Underworld´s titular gods, Pluto and Proserpina, watch the scene in terror. [+]
Apollo fights the terrible Python to free beautiful Andromeda, who was destined to be one of the victims of this monster. She is sketched in behind the beast. In the air, Cupid shoots his arrows into [+]
Hercules was born from one of Jupiter´s affairs with a mortal. Though loved and protected by his father, he was repudiated by the latter´s wife, Juno. In order to insure his son´s immortality, Jupiter [+]
