Self-portrait in a circle of friends in Mantua, also referred to as Self-Portrait in the Circle of Mantuan Friends or, for short, as Mantuan Friendship Picture[1] is an oil painting on canvas by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, produced between 1602 and 1606 when the artist worked in Mantua as a court painter of the Gonzagas.

[1][3] The picture depicts six men at bust-length shown in profile or semi-profile in front of a marine landscape bathed in an unnatural light.

The vantage point for seeing the bridge from the angle depicted in the painting must have been the Palazzo Ducale, and more precisely what is now the Appartamento della Mostra or Rustica.

Other students of Lipsius in Flanders are also depicted in the composition: the young Guillaume (or Willem) Richardot on the far left with either Nicolaas Rockox or Juan Batiste Perez de Baron behind him.

[4] The barque or gondola on the lake may be a reference to the Styx, the river of the Underworld in Greek mythology and its inclusion in the picture could mean that Lipsius was already dead at the time it was painted, although this is not certain.

[1] The person immediately across from Rubens who has placed his hand on his arm was long thought to be his fellow Flemish painter Frans Pourbus the Younger.

[3] Lipsius had been the founder of Stoic science with his 1605 edition of Seneca's Naturales quaestiones (Natural Questions), which influenced, amongst others, Kepler.

The reddish luminous phenomenon in the left half of the landscape which mainly surrounds Galilei has been interpreted as the depiction of an aurora borealis, a yet poorly understood event at the time.

Galileo's gesture of placing his hand on Rubens' arm has been interpreted in various ways from "consolatio" to a simple friendly touch.

Referred to traditionally as The Four Philosophers (Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence), it depicts Rubens, his brother Philip, Lipsius and Joannes Woverius.