Peter Paul Rubens

He is portrayed as powerful and elegant. In painting this portraiture, he started the tradition of Baroque equestrian portraiture. .
             It shows an expression of physical power and as if the rider and horse are headed toward the viewer. .
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             By 1611, Rubens had married a young woman and had his first child, Clara Serena. His brother, Philip, had died and Rubens was left to take care of his two children. In his career, he had overshadowed his former teacher, van Veen. Although, throughout the following decade, many pieces of religious artwork containing shepherd, saints and crucifixions, Rubens still remained widely recognized. He opened a new studio across the courtyard from his house. He had turned away many assistants and students who admired him. Of his outside collaborators, there were many distinguished painters such as Jan Wildens and Frans Snyders. Among his assistants was Anthony Van Dyck. He assisted Rubens in his first tapestry cycle and a series of thirty-nine ceiling paintings. He was soon burdened with many commissions both private and public. Rubens exchanged his paintings for other good he desired. He was a persistent and persuasive businessman, which assisted him in gaining Sir Dudley Carleton's "rare collection of antiquities". These antiquities helped him design many sculptures although he was said to have never used a chisel. .
             By March 1621, Rubens was widely known as "the painter of princes and the prince of painters". He traveled to Paris in 1622 to help the queen of France, Mariz de" Medice to draw plans for the decoration for the two main galleries in he new Luxembourg Palace. While in Paris, he met Nicolos-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Peiresc initiated Rubens" secondary tapestry commision, The Marriage of Constantine. The painting is of a marriage of Contantine to Fausta and Constantia, Contantine's sister to Licinius. He portrays the marriages with Roman decorations and within the temple of Jupiter and Juno.