PETER PAUL RUBENS
(June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England.

 

Helnwein Child: Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens, Helena Fourment and her Children, ca. 1636

 

Helnwein Child: Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens, Virgin and Child, oil on wood, 65 x 48cm, 1620-24