The Origin of the Milky Way

In 1636 Philip IV of Spain was fitting out a hunting lodge outside Madrid called the Torre de la Parada, and he wanted dozens of mythological scenes for it. The biggest share of that order went to Rubens, then in his late fifties and running a busy Antwerp workshop, and this is one of the canvases he sent south. It shows the moment the ancient Greeks used to explain the band of light across the night sky. Juno, queen of the gods, is nursing the infant Hercules, and as he pulls away her milk sprays upward and becomes the Milky Way. The peacocks drawing her chariot were her sacred birds. Look at Juno's face and you are looking at someone Rubens knew well. He gave her the features of his second wife, Hélène Fourment, whom he had married in his fifties when she was sixteen.