The creative study of the important works of his predecessors and contemporaries occupied Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) throughout his life and left its mark on the works he produced over a period of fifty years. The comparison of his works with sculptures from Antiquity and the Renaissance, paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and Caravaggio and prints by Raimondi and Goltzius reveals a fascinating view of Rubens's surprising transformation of subjects, his new presentation of familiar pictorial themes and his skilled search for the right format. Only thus does the exceptional talent of this great master become tangible. Rubens's works continue to enchant the present-day viewer as directly as they did during his lifetime.