Portrait of Albert, Archduke of Austria, Sovereign of the Southern Netherlands

Rubens was an important and influential artist, as well as an international diplomat, successful businessman, devout Catholic, and an intellectual fluent in six languages. After study with local Antwerp painters, Rubens studied in Italy, copying works from antiquity and Renaissance masters. Rubens is famed for an energetic Baroque style that blends northern European realism with the grandeur and monumentality of Italian art. His work is characterized by a free, expressive technique that seemed to captured the feeling of 'joie de vivre.' His workshop was extremely prolific, with its many assistants helping to produce great numbers of paintings of many subjects, book illustrations, tapestry designs, festival decorations, and engraved reproductions of his paintings. He greatly influenced contemporary artists and later generations as well.