After Sir Peter Paul Rubens

A copy after the sketch for a tapestry design by Rubens. The composition exists in a large-scale work in the Musée de Beaux-Arts, Pau (107 x 126.5 cm.),¹ but the present work replicates the small oil sketch in the Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (44.2 x 53 cm.), which houses the the full set of modelli.² The design is the fifth of eight scenes devised by Rubens for a series of tapestries depicting the Life of Achilles, intended for the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua.³

^1 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/250437

² https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/2590/thetis-receiving-the-arms-of-achilles-from-vulcanus

³ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens/Tapestry_designs#The_Life_of_Achilles