Las hilanderas o la fábula de Aracne

Artwork · Diego Velázquez · 1655–1660 · oil painting · Museo del Prado

Painted by Velázquez in the late 1650s: in the foreground women spin wool in a tapestry workshop; in the lit room behind, Minerva punishes Arachne before a tapestry of the rape of Europa — the fable from Ovid. It was long read as a scene of the royal tapestry factory.