Triumph and Taste: Peter Paul Rubens at the Ringling Museum of Art

Europe's kings and princes prized Peter Paul Rubens' vibrant, colourful, and often voluptuous works, which included altarpieces and other religious pictures; portraits; hunt and mythological scenes. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, possesses one of America's premier and diverse collections of paintings by Rubens, including five extraordinary, full-scale painted models for the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry series; Pausias and Glycera, created in collaboration with the flower painter Osias Beert; a painted sketch for a tapestry wittily depicting Achilles Dipped in the Styx; the tragic and brilliantly coloured Departure of Lot and his Family from Sodom; and an exuberant, bravura portrait of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, ruler of the Southern Netherlands. This lavishly illustrated publication will introduce the artist and these outstanding works, shed new light on their meanings, functions, and facture, and share original perspectives on their provenance.

Virginia Brilliant is Associate Curator of European Art at the John And Mable Ringling Museum of Art.