Democritus

For most of the 19th century the museum thought this was Archimedes. The 1857 inventory of the Real Museo entered it as school of Rubens, number 1703, Archimedes, meditating with a globe in his hand, and a handwritten label on the stretcher still carries that name. The globe is what misled them. The figure is now taken to be Democritus, the Greek philosopher remembered for laughing at human affairs, and the canvas a copy of a Democritus painted by the workshop of Rubens between 1636 and 1638. It is tall and very narrow, 119 centimetres by 45. The picture was already in the royal Alcázar of Madrid by 1686, and the number 1703 is still brushed in orange at the lower right corner.