The Coronation of the Hero of Virtue

A victorious general crowned by winged Victory was a stock image of ancient Rome. On this large oak panel, painted around 1613, Rubens turns that victory into a moral one. Victoria lowers the laurel wreath onto the hero's head, and the enemies around him are vices. The satyr sprawled on the ground stands for drunkenness. With the staff he holds on a diagonal, the hero pushes aside Venus, here the figure of unchaste love. Her power is broken, as the little Cupid weeping at her shoulder and the love arrows scattered about make clear. In the shadow behind, Envy draws back. Victoria herself stands with her legs elegantly crossed, a pose that, like the whole subject, the museum traces to ancient models. The panel reached Munich in 1806 from the gallery of the Palatine electors in Düsseldorf.