June 28, 1577
Siegen, Westphalia, Germany
May 30, 1640
Antwerp, Belgium

Painter, diplomat

"My talent is such that no enterprise, however vast in number and in diversity of subjects, has surpassed my courage."

Peter Paul Rubens.

The Flemish painter and diplomat (one who conducts negotiations between governments) Peter Paul Rubens was one of the best-known artists of the seventeenth century. He received commissions from Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany as well as from his homeland, the southern Netherlands. His boundless imagination, capacity for work, and productivity were legendary during his lifetime. In 1621, when he was not yet forty-five years old, an English visitor to Antwerp (a city in present-day Belgium) described him as "the master workman of the world." Rubens said of himself, without boasting, that his talent was so great that no...