Atalanta and Meleager
Artist: Peter Paul Rubens (Belgian, 1577–1640)
Original Dimensions: 52 1/2" x 42"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (ca. 1616) "Like many of Rubens’s other works, this painting illustrates a story from the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid (completed A.D. 8). Meleager has killed a monstrous boar and presents its head to Atalanta, with whom he has fallen in love. In the background is a snake-haired Fury—a reference to the subsequent feuding over the boar’s hide that will lead to Meleager’s death. Although a splendid example of Rubens’s depiction of substantial, fleshy bodies, the picture is not in uniformly good condition. Parts are abraded and the drapery over the right shoulder of Meleager has been reconstructed on the basis of a workshop copy." - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

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