I have neither time to live nor to write. I am therefore cheating my art by stealing a few evening hours to write this most inadequate and negligent reply to the courteous and elegant letters of yours.

At a speed which was daunting even for someone of his facility, Rubens was asked to supply the designs for four stages and five triumphal arches in the city Antwerp. Though he could rely on his scholarly friends for help with the allegorical program and his workshop for assistance in fabricating them, he still became 'overburdened' with the work