Book Review! Spectacular Rubens: The Triumph of the Eucharist

The description of the book pretty much sums up what the book entails and what you are going to get.  This isn’t a light read, nor a picture book meant for the coffee table, but rather an in-depth look at the twenty tapestries and the history surrounding them.  Beautifully illustrated, this book not only covers the history of the tapestries, but also gives some insight and history to the person who commissioned the work to Rubens.  What I found the most intriguing within the book was the documentation of the restoration process (something I have longed to do but never learned in school).  All in all this is an excellent read.  If you ever get a chance to thumb through the book it is worth taking a look.

The bit from the publisher: 

The six glorious scenes that make up the Triumph of the Eucharist series by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) are highlights of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s superb collection of Flemish paintings. Completed in 1626, these brilliantly detailed sketches were painted at the behest of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in preparation for a series of monumental tapestries that are now considered among the finest made in Europe in the seventeenth century. Unfortunately, additions to the wooden supports, introduced after the paintings were created, made the panels considerably larger than Rubens intended and over time caused serious damage to the original sections. With the aid of the Getty Foundation’s Panel Paintings Initiative, the panels have been restored and returned to their original dimensions by the Prado, and the magnificent oil sketches can once again be placed on public view. This lushly illustrated and illuminating volume provides new insight into the history of the Eucharist series of paintings and tapestries and attests to Rubens’s exhilarating art.
  Spectacular Rubens is published on the occasion of an exhibition of the paintings, on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado from March 25 through June 29, 2014, and at the J. Paul Getty Museum from October 14, 2014, through January 4, 2015.