Pallas and Arachne
The painting depicts the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses of the weaving contest between the god Athena and the mortal Arachne.[4] Rubens's Pallas and Arachne was copied by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, the Spanish Baroque painter and son-in-law of Diego Velázquez.Velázquez positioned Mazo's copy of Pallas and Arachne behind him during his composition of Las Meninas, which he paired with another painting about different contest of the arts between gods and mortals (Apollo as Victor over Pan).The copy of Pallas and Arachne was then painted into the background of the scene in Las Meninas, which would go on to be one of the most recognized and analyzed canvases in the history of western art.[5][6][7] A copy by Rubens of Velázquez's favorite work, Titian's The Rape of Europa, was owned by The Royal Collection of Philip IV.