Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Allegory of Eternity (1622-25)- oil on panel 66.04 cm x 34.29 cm. - SDMA San Diego Museum of Art
Seated in a landscape on a rocky formation is an older woman wearing a pale rose dress with a white drapery wrapped over her left shoulder and across her lap; her head and shoulders are covered by a thin yellow veil. She turns her worried face to the genius that hovers overhead in a swirl of drapery. The genius holds in his left hand a large hooplike form and with his right extends the end of a cord held also by the old woman. The cord crosses the woman's lap and is grasped by the putto standing at her knee; two additional putti carry the cord in the foreground of the scene. Pink roses are strung along the middle segment of the cord's length.
The San Diego painting is the modello for one of the smaller tapestries belonging to the Triumph of the Eucharist cycle, commissioned by the Archduchess Isabella for the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid in about 1625. The modello differs from the woven tapestry in several key respects that affect our understanding of the subject: in the tapestry, the hoop held by the genius is more clearly rendered as a snake biting its tail; and the cord connecting the figures is decorated with portrait medals of the popes, rather than roses.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Allegory of Eternity (1622-25)- oil on panel 66.04 cm x 34.29 cm. - SDMA San Diego Museum of Art
Seated in a landscape on a rocky formation is an older woman wearing a pale rose dress with a white drapery wrapped over her left shoulder and across her lap; her head and shoulders are covered by a thin yellow veil. She turns her worried face to the genius that hovers overhead in a swirl of drapery. The genius holds in his left hand a large hooplike form and with his right extends the end of a cord held also by the old woman. The cord crosses the woman's lap and is grasped by the putto standing at her knee; two additional putti carry the cord in the foreground of the scene. Pink roses are strung along the middle segment of the cord's length.
The San Diego painting is the modello for one of the smaller tapestries belonging to the Triumph of the Eucharist cycle, commissioned by the Archduchess Isabella for the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid in about 1625. The modello differs from the woven tapestry in several key respects that affect our understanding of the subject: in the tapestry, the hoop held by the genius is more clearly rendered as a snake biting its tail; and the cord connecting the figures is decorated with portrait medals of the popes, rather than roses.