When King Philip IV of Spain commissioned a cycle of mythological paintings for his hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada, in 1636, he turned to Peter Paul Rubens, the most celebrated painter of the Baroque age. Rubens, working at a furious pace in Antwerp, devised rapid oil sketches—like this The Birth of Venus—to guide his workshop and collaborators in executing the final canvases destined for the Spanish court. These sketches, prized for their immediacy and energy, were not meant for public display, yet they offer a privileged glimpse into Rubens’s creative process and the royal taste for grand, sensual mythologies. Here, Rubens captures the instant Venus emerges from the sea, born of foam, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The goddess, nude and luminous, is lifted by sea nymphs, while tritons and putti swirl around her in a lively, swirling composition. The shell beneath Venus’s feet and the billowing drapery recall Botticelli’s famous The Birth of Venus, but Rubens’s version is more dynamic, his figures robust and animated, the flesh painted with a creamy, tactile quality. The gestures—Venus’s modest yet inviting pose, the nymphs’ adoration—signal her dual nature as both innocent and irresistible, a symbol of love’s power and danger.

The light, flickering across the bodies and water, heightens the sense of movement and celebration. Though the finished painting for the Torre de la Parada is now lost, this sketch survives as a testament to Rubens’s role as both designer and master of myth. The work likely passed through the Spanish royal collections before entering the Prado, where it stands as part of a remarkable group of preparatory sketches. These oil sketches are now valued as works in their own right, revealing Rubens’s hand at its most spontaneous and inventive.

They also mark a high point in the collaboration between the Flemish master and the Spanish crown, a partnership that brought the exuberance of the Baroque to the heart of Habsburg Spain.