to prove the master’s satisfaction with his own handiwork. It is a
design of carefully studied rhythm, dramatic expressiveness, and subtly
harmonised colour, carried out with the swift sureness of his later
work.
In 1627, a year before his mission to Spain on behalf of the Infanta
Isabella, widow of the Archduke Albrecht, Rubens designed for his
patroness an important series of tapestries, which were, as was his
wont at that period, sketched out by him, executed by his assistants,
and touched up by his own hand. The tapestries were subsequently
presented by the Infanta to a convent at Madrid; some of the paintings
for them perished by fire, others were preserved at the Convent of
Loeches, near Madrid. Two of these, _The Prophet Elijah in the Desert_
(No. 2076) and _The Triumph of Religion_ (No. 2083), were part of
General Sebastiani’s loot from Spain, and were bought by the Louvre for
£2400; whilst four others, now at Grosvenor House, were bought
by the Marquis of Westminster for £10,500. Of about the same date is
the brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (No. 2077), with its Titianesque
scheme of strong red, blue, and golden yellow, of which a replica is in
an Irish private collection.
[Illustration:
PLATE XXI.—SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
(1577-1640)