Hippomenes and Atalanta

The painter's name is written on this canvas, and it may not be his own writing. Svetlana Alpers, who made the one full study of the commission, found that the lettering here does not match the name on the other canvas he delivered, and several pictures in the group may have been signed in Madrid after they arrived. The Cardinal-Infante Fernando, governing Flanders while the work went on, sent his brother Philip IV a memorandum listing which painter had made which picture from Rubens's designs. The subject comes from Ovid. Atalanta would take no husband who could not beat her in a race, and the men who lost were killed, so Venus gave Hippomenes three golden apples to throw in her path. The design is Rubens's almost exactly, down to the column at the right, which shows its top here and barely appears in his sketch.