Peace Embracing Plenty

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Oil on panel

Yale Center for British Art

This oil sketch on panel depicts two allegorical female figures in a tender embrace: Peace, draped in gold, moving to embrace Plenty, who is clad in pink and carrying a cornucopia as a symbol of abundance, all set before an architectural backdrop featuring four Solomonic columns traditionally associated with the Temple of Jerusalem and the ideal of a wise and prosperous reign. The work is a preparatory modello — a small-scale sketch produced by Rubens to guide the assistants in his Antwerp studio — for a section of the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace in London, commissioned by King Charles I to celebrate the reign of his father, James I. Sir Peter Paul Rubens, the preeminent master of the Flemish Baroque, was a classically educated humanist, diplomat, and painter whose style is distinguished by its dynamic movement, rich color, and sensuous allegorical imagery. The Banqueting House ceiling represents one of the most prestigious royal commissions of the seventeenth century and stands as a landmark achievement both in Rubens's career and in the history of European court painting.