Peter Paul Rubens

Born in 1577 to Flemish refugees in the Holy Roman Empire, Peter Paul Rubens moved to Antwerp around age twelve and grew into a classically educated humanist who could negotiate treaties as deftly as he mixed pigment. He ran a vast workshop that fed Europe's appetite for altarpieces, mythological epics, and hunt scenes, all rendered in his signature style: movement, color, sensuality, erudition. Knighted by Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England, he designed tapestries, published a book on Genoese palaces that influenced Northern architecture, collected art and books on a scale that made…