Meleager and Atalante

Rubens painted this around 1635, late in his life, and chose the moment just after the hunt. Artemis, goddess of the hunt, had sent a wild boar to ravage Calydon because an offering to her had been neglected. Atalanta's arrow wounded it first, Meleager finished it off, and here he hands her its head while Cupid helps him. The gift sets the tragedy in motion. Behind Meleager the museum points out an Erinys, one of the Furies, the avenging spirits of Greek myth, announcing the harm to come. In the story his uncles object to the prize going to a woman, he kills them, and his own mother then brings about his death. The canvas was once made wider with a strip added on the left. That strip has since been taken off, and the Munich collection keeps it in storage as a separate piece.