Prometheus Bound

c. 1611–18

Oil on canvas, 242.6 × 209.6 cm · Philadelphia Museum of Art

One of the first major works from Rubens’s Antwerp studio, which he thought among his most important pictures. The eagle was painted by his colleague Frans Snyders.

The eagle tears open the chest and digs a talon into one eye, while the other eye stares at the bird.
The tumbling body comes from Titian’s Tityus; the muscles from Michelangelo.
The left arm almost leaves the canvas, pushing the figure toward the viewer.
Look for the torch, sign of the stolen fire.
Bought by the museum in 1950.

For giving fire to humans, Zeus chained Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus, where an eagle ate his liver every day. The story is told in the play attributed to Aeschylus.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain