Peter Paul Rubens, The Garden of Love, 1630-1632

 Quotes in italics from the letters and correspondence of Peter Paul Rubens
* included in such scholarly sources as:
The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens. Translated and edited by Ruth Saunders Magurn, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1955

“How gladly we accept this gift of sensuous pleasure! and how gratefully!” 
Sybaritic circles dance round and round
How greedily they drink the plot

“I feared that notorious quality of the aristocracy, their self-conceit, especially so in someone of the opposite sex…”
Quailing the elegant vogue
now confined to delight

“…If God wanted these vermin to eat, surely he would provide them with substance.”
Glitterati grace the garden scene
Feasting on the flowers

“My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size… has ever surpassed my courage.” 
Hauteur of a strange decadence
A wound accrued to scar the world

“Painting a young maiden is similar to cavorting with great abandon. It is the finest refreshment.”
From then on, he lived there
In the garden of Narcissus
Infatuated with retreat