This paper discusses the diplomat, linguist and scholar, Peter Paul Rubens is also considered to be the most sought-after portrait painter of seventeenth century Northern Europe. The Flemish-born son of a lawyer, Rubens studied the classics at a Latin school in Antwerp and then served as a court page before deciding to become a painter. In 1598, by the age of 21, he was given the rank of master painter of the Antwerp Guild of St.Luke. Two years later he would move to Italy where he became immersed in the works of the Italian renaissance masters such as Paolo Veronese and Tintoretto and most significantly, Titian, whose style would greatly influence his own.
