A Psalm for King James
Art History, a leading journal in the field, has published an essay by Vanessa Lyon called "A Psalm for King James: Rubens's Peace Embracing Plenty and the Virtues of Female Affection at Whitehall.”
![A Psalm for King James](https://www.bennington.edu/sites/default/files/styles/300_wide_300/public/sources/stories/Vanessa-Lyon-Art-History_300x225.jpg?itok=4YKbTGXu)
"Art historians have long interpreted the intimate coupling of Rubens’s Peace Embracing Plenty (Whitehall Palace Banqueting House, London) as a representational ‘paraphrase’ of ‘Righteousness kissing Peace’ (Psalm 85). This essay proposes a more likely and appropriate biblical source for the allegory by placing Rubens’s amorous female personifications within the context of Caroline divine-right rhetoric, a quintessential sermon by William Laud, and changing approaches to allegorical representation at the English court. It argues that the scriptural meeting and kissing of virtues provided Rubens with both a notional narrative and an authoritative justification for representing female affection, even same-sex desire, in a political and morally positive light." —Vanessa Lyon