Jupiter and Lycaon

Ovid's first book tells how Lycaon, who ruled Arcadia by terror, wanted to find out whether his guest really was a god, and served him human flesh. Jupiter brought the house down with a thunderbolt and sent the king off on four legs. Rubens gathered the whole sequence, the table, the lightning and the change, into one small panel about 20 centimetres high, and added the eagle that carries the bolts; that sketch is now in a museum at Rochefort in western France. Jan Cossiers enlarged it to 120 by 115 centimetres between 1636 and 1638, for the Torre de la Parada, Philip IV's hunting lodge in the hills of El Pardo. Ovid says the wolf keeps traces of the man, and here the trace is plain: the animal is still wearing his clothes.