1625 (ca.), Peter Paul Rubens, Allegory of Eternity: The Succession of the Popes -- San Diego Museum of Art
From the museum label: Around 1622 the Infanta (princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II of Spain, commissioned a series of twenty tapestries for the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Woven in Brussels according to Rubens's designs, the Triumph of the Eucharist series was among the greatest artistic commissions of the century. Rubens first produced a set of oil sketches like this one. In the final tapestry, the ribbon of roses spun by the veiled figure of Eternity becomes a series of portraits of popes, an allusion to the everlasting legitimacy of the papacy.
1625 (ca.), Peter Paul Rubens, Allegory of Eternity: The Succession of the Popes -- San Diego Museum of Art
From the museum label: Around 1622 the Infanta (princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II of Spain, commissioned a series of twenty tapestries for the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Woven in Brussels according to Rubens's designs, the Triumph of the Eucharist series was among the greatest artistic commissions of the century. Rubens first produced a set of oil sketches like this one. In the final tapestry, the ribbon of roses spun by the veiled figure of Eternity becomes a series of portraits of popes, an allusion to the everlasting legitimacy of the papacy.