In 1620, when Rubens undertook to paint a series of thirty-nine _Miracles of SS. Ignatius Loyola and François Xavier_ for the ceiling of the Jesuit Church at Antwerp, the business-like organisation of his studio was an acknowledged fact, as may be gathered from the terms of the agreement which stipulated that the master himself should provide the designs, though the execution was to be entrusted to his most competent assistants. The actual paintings were destroyed by fire in 1718, but of the original sketches seventeen have been preserved, and are now distributed between the Louvre, the Vienna Academy, the Museums of Gotha and Brussels, and the Dulwich Gallery. The four in the La Caze collection at the Louvre are _Abraham’s Sacrifice_ (No. 2120), _Abraham and Melchisedek_ (No. 2121), _The Elevation of the Cross_ (No. 2122), and _The Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 2123). The whole series, but especially the first two of these, is remarkable for the boldness of the foreshortening, calculated for the position of the panels on the ceiling, and for the swift bravura and inimitable expressiveness of the brushwork. To the same period belongs _Philopœmen recognised by an Old Woman_ (No. 2124), which is essentially a brilliant still-life study for a lost picture. THE MÉDICIS SERIES We come now to the series of twenty-one large allegorical paintings, designed by Rubens and executed mostly by his pupils, from 1621 to 1625, for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace for Marie de Médicis, whose by no means inspiring career had to furnish the subjects for the series. It was a thankless task which could only be accomplished by a _tour de force_—by removing the events of the queen’s life from actuality into the sphere of mythology and allegory. That the strange mingling of the real and the ideal should sometimes verge on the grotesque was almost inevitable—as inevitable as that the work of his assistants should have failed to do full justice to the master’s conception, even if it was “pulled together” by the easily recognisable touches added by Rubens to the finished panels. The florid exuberance of design and colour was entirely in keeping with the purpose and the surroundings for which the paintings were intended. It is impossible here to enter into a full description of this extensive series, or to define exactly Rubens’s share in each of the eleven pictures. We must confine ourselves to the brief enumeration of the subjects in the order in which they are now to be seen in the new Rubens Gallery. The series begins with _The Fates spinning the Destiny of Marie de Médicis_ (No. 2085). Then follow _The Triumph of Truth_ (No. 2105); _Henri IV. receiving the Portrait of Marie_ (No. 2088); _The Marriage of Marie by Procuration with Henri IV._ (No. 2089); _Marie landing at Marseilles, Nov. 3, 1600_ (No. 2090); _The Marriage at Lyons, Dec. 10, 1600_ (No. 2091); _The Birth of Louis XIII. at Fontainebleau, Sept. 27, 1601_ (No.