The Birth of the Milky Way

Peter Paul Rubens

Oil on canvas

Museo del Prado

This magnificent Baroque oil painting depicts the Greco-Roman myth of the Milky Way's celestial origin: the goddess Hera (Juno) sits upon a cloud amid a starry night sky, her breast milk gushing forth to streak across the heavens and form the Milky Way, while the infant Hercules reaches toward her and Zeus watches from behind his golden chariot drawn by peacocks. Rubens, the supreme master of the Flemish Baroque, renders the scene with breathtaking dynamism — luminous flesh tones emerge dramatically from a deep nocturnal background, and every figure pulses with kinetic energy and mythological grandeur. The painting was commissioned in 1636 by King Philip IV of Spain to decorate his royal hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada, and is one of only about 15 works from that massive commission believed to have been painted entirely by Rubens himself. Now housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, this work is a crowning jewel of Western Baroque painting, blending cosmic myth, sensuous beauty, and theatrical drama in a way that captivates viewers centuries after its creation.