Peter Paul Rubens was born in Germany, the son of a famous émigré jurist, and grew up in Cologne and Antwerp in a humanistic atmosphere.

Between 1591 and 1598 he studied with Tobias Verhaecht, Adam van Noort, and Otto van Veen. In 1600 he traveled to Italy, where he worked briefly at the court of the duke of Gonzaga in Mantua. In the following year he was in Rome producing paintings for Santa Croce Basilica in Gerusalemme commissioned by Archduke Albrecht. From 1602 to 1605, except for a few months spent in Spain on a diplomatic mission, he worked in Genoa as a portraitist and painter of altarpieces. The year 1606 saw him once more in Rome, executing important commissions for the Chiesa Nuova, the main church of the Oratorians. In 1608 he returned to Antwerp. The following year he married Isabella Brant, the daughter of a highly respected jurist and scholar, and was appointed court painter to Archduke Albrecht and the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia.

As Antwerp’s most prominent painter, Rubens maintained a large workshop resembling an assembly line, wherein he produced commissions for major religious orders of the Spanish Netherlands, France, and Germany. Beginning around 1618 he undertook the entire decoration of the newly erected Jesuit church in Antwerp, painting altarpieces and ceiling frescoes (with the help of his workshop, notably his most gifted pupil, Anthony van Dyck). In 1622 he worked for Marie de’ Medici, queen of France, as well as Spanish and English patrons. After the death of his wife in 1626, he frequently undertook diplomatic assignments on behalf of Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia in The Netherlands, France, Spain, and England. He enjoyed close ties to England's art-loving King Charles I and his court, and was awarded an English peerage. In London he produced a major commission for the Banqueting House of Whitehall. Beginning in 1630, after taking as his second wife the much younger Hélène Fourment and buying a palace near Antwerp, he made an effort to extricate himself from the pressure of commissions, court duties, and diplomatic work. Despite these efforts, in 1636 he began to paint a mythological cycle in the royal hunting lodge Torre de la Parada, near Madrid.

In his later years Rubens painted important landscapes in a style inspired by Venetian paintings held in the royal collections in Madrid. He was ultimately hindered in his painting by painful attacks of gout, but suffered no loss of creative energy.