January 23, 2017

"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