Five Facts About Rubens's Triumph of the Eucharist at The Ringling

Key facts

• The Ringling Museum of Art displays five large oil paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and his workshop, part of the Triumph of the Eucharist series.
• The paintings were created around 1625 for Isabella Clara Eugenia, ruler of the Spanish Netherlands and daughter of King Philip II of Spain.
• Isabella Clara Eugenia commissioned Rubens to design 20 tapestries for a convent in Madrid; the Ringling paintings reproduce five of those designs.
• The tapestries were likely displayed in the convent church on special feast days and celebrate the Eucharist.
• The Ringling paintings were once thought to be cartoons, but are no longer considered as such due to their reversed composition, lack of cutting, and oil-on-canvas medium.
• After completion, the paintings were moved to Isabella Clara Eugenia's palace in Brussels; their exact purpose remains unknown.
• Only seven paintings from the series survive: five at The Ringling and two at the Louvre in Paris; the rest are believed destroyed in a palace fire.
• The Ringling's five paintings were bequeathed by John Ringling in 1936, except The Triumph of Divine Love, which was purchased in 1980.