Achilles discovered by Ulysses and Diomedes

Around 1617, Rubens ran the busiest painting workshop in Antwerp, and his most gifted assistant was a teenager named Anthony van Dyck. Much of this canvas is thought to be the young Van Dyck's work, retouched by Rubens at the end. The scene comes from the Trojan legends. Achilles has been hidden among the daughters of King Lycomedes, dressed as one of the girls to keep him out of the war, and the two visitors on the right, Ulysses and Diomedes, have arrived with gifts. He gives himself away the moment he reaches for the sword among them. When Rubens offered the picture to an English collector, Sir Dudley Carleton, it was turned down for not being entirely from the master's own hand. It went to Spain instead, and by 1625 hung in the royal Alcázar in Madrid.