The Age of Rubens

R. Malcolm Smuts, L. Duerloo

This thoroughly interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the multi-faceted relationship between international politics, diplomacy and the visual arts that developed during the early seventeenth century. Several chapters provide major re-evaluations of the career of Peter Paul Rubens as an artistdiplomat, based on previously neglected manuscript sources and a deepened analysis of the social and political environments in which he operated. Other contributors focus on Rubens<U+2019>s contemporary court artists, such as Anthony van Dyck, Guido Reni and Diego Velázquez. In addition to providing original interpretations of several important paintings and painting cycles, the volume examines such topics as the evolution of personified images of nationality, representations of dynastic marriages, the material culture of royal bridal trousseaus, the importance of details of costume and...