The Abduction of Helen (Reni)

[1] In 1627, via his ambassadors in Italy, Philip IV of Spain had ordered from Guido Reni a large canvas showing the rape of Helen of Troy.

Some art historians suggest that - in this Thirty Years War context - the pro-French pope Urban VIII even used the work to send a message to his arch-enemy on the Spanish throne.

[2] Some have argued that it and Guercino's The Death of Dido were part of a joint allegory directed at Philip IV and Maria by the papal court.

After its completion Reni and the Spanish ambassadors fell out over his payment and the painting went unsold, with Spada taking the opportunity to suggest Maria de' Medici buy it instead.

[2] When Abduction reached France but could not be collected by Maria (who had in the meantime fallen from power), it was instead acquired in or before 1654 by marquess Louis Phélypeaux de La Vrillière, who put it in his now-lost gallery in Paris and commissioned a pendant for it by Pietro da Cortona with the title Caesar Giving Cleopatra the Throne of Egypt.