A masterful artist and skillful diplomat at various courts in seventeenth-century Europe, Peter Paul Rubens forged an epochal style characterized by rich color and voluptuous forms. This work depicts a scene from the Bible in which Christ responds to the Pharisees' question about whether it is just for the inhabitants of Judea to pay taxes to the occupying forces of imperial Rome. Pointing to an image on a Roman coin, Jesus says, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.”