Victory crowns the Hero

Around 1613 Rubens painted a large allegory, now in Kassel, of a victorious commander crowned after Concord has helped him overcome Discord. Close to 20 years later, in the early 1630s, he went back to that design for this small oak panel, not much more than half a metre wide, and with a few changes gave it a different meaning. The dead enemies still lie at the victor's feet, and Victoria, the goddess of victory, still sets a laurel wreath on his head. The victor, though, is turning away from her, toward the figure of Virtue standing behind him. In the museum's reading, the crown now goes to a victor who stands out for his virtue. Rubens reused his own inventions like this all his working life, adjusting a pose or a figure to fit a new message rather than starting again. The panel may once have belonged to Nicolas Régnier, a painter and dealer in Venice, and later to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.