FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS

This composition is after the prime by Rubens in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. The prime is the first in a series of eight oil sketches executed by Rubens in preparation for a series of tapestries that tell the story of the Greek hero Achilles. There is no mention in Rubens' vast correspondence of a commission for the series, but it seems likely that they were designed for his father-in-law, Daniel Fourment, a tapestry merchant, between 1630 and 1635. In this first episode of the story the sea nymph Thetis is shown dipping her son, the infant Achilles, in the River Styx. Thetis was hoping that by doing so she would make her son immortal, after an oracle had told her that he would die young in battle. Sadly, because she held the child by his foot, as Rubens makes very clear in his composition, this area was not touched by the waters and remained vulnerable, the proverbial Achilles' heel. Ultimately, he would be killed by a poisoned arrow entering this point during the Trojan Wars.