Jupiter Rebuked by Venus

On the summit of Mount Olympus, Venus confronts Jupiter, her arm raised in reproach while the king of the gods shifts with visible annoyance. Abraham Janssens, Peter Paul Rubens’s major competitor in Antwerp in the 1610s, painted this monumental mythological scene around 1612; the composition is a direct reference to a ceiling by Raphael in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, but Janssens enhanced the power and dynamism of the figures by emphasizing their musculature and working on a larger scale. The picture dates from after his five-year stay in Rome, and its sculptural figures carry recognizable quotations from ancient sculpture and Italian Renaissance painting. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.