Der gefesselte Prometheus

Rubens rated this among his most important paintings, and he did not do it alone. He painted the writhing body of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the gods and was chained to a rock as punishment, an eagle sent each day to tear out his liver, which grew back each night so the torture never ended. The eagle itself is by another hand: Frans Snyders, an Antwerp specialist in animals, who rendered it in tiny precise strokes while Rubens worked the human flesh in broad loose ones. Sharing a picture like this was ordinary practice among the Antwerp masters of the day. Rubens began it around 1611 and kept returning to it for years before letting it go.