AMSTERDAM.- From 17 September 2011 to 16 March 2012, the Hermitage Amsterdam will present a stunning selection from the Flemish art collection of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. With 75 paintings and about 20 drawings, this definitive survey will include numerous masterpieces by the three giants of the Antwerp School – Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens – accompanied by the work of well-known contemporaries. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) will be a special focus of the exhibition, represented by 17 paintings and many drawings. Rubens was the most accomplished and influential Flemish painter of the seventeenth century. At the same time, he was known as a charming aristocrat, diplomat, and collector, and his workshop was a smoothly operating business. He was a legend in his day, a homo universalis. Both Rubens’s religious and his secular works illustrate his unequalled talent. One of his