Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, Peter Paul Rubens (1630)
This is a copy by Peter Paul Rubens of a renowned portrait of the Italian author and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione. The original was painted by the Renaissance artist Raphael around 1514 and is now in the Louvre museum, Paris. Rubens could have seen it in Italy or Amsterdam, where the painting was by 1630. However, it is more likely that he worked from other copies or prints. Rubens probably painted this work as a homage to the original portrait, but also as a form of artistic rivalry with Raphael.
