Heraclitus and Democritus (Rubens)

Heraclitus and Democritus is a 1603 painting by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. It is now held in the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid. It shows the ancient Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Democritus.

Rubens produced the work as a commission for Francisco Gómez de Sandoval Rojas y Borja, valet to Philip III of Spain. It passed through several collections, ending up in that of the Syrian oil magnate Akram Ojjeh. After Ojjeh's death, it was sold to the Spanish Ministry of Culture for 175,000,000 pesetas in December 1999 via Christie's of London.