Ixión, rey de los lapitas, engañado por Juno, a quien deseaba seducir

Around 1615 Rubens, back home in Antwerp and running the busiest workshop in Europe, painted this odd and cruel myth. Ixion, a king who lusted after Juno, the wife of Jupiter, is shown at the moment of his punishment. Jupiter has shaped a cloud into Juno's exact likeness, and Ixion, on the left, embraces the fake, believing he has won the queen of the gods. The real Juno stands to the right with her peacock, watching the trick work. From that union with a cloud came the centaurs, and Ixion himself was bound forever to a spinning wheel of fire. Rubens paints warm living flesh against the vapour so you can nearly miss which woman is real. A collector left it to the Louvre in 1914.