In 1927, Aby Warburg and Fritz Saxl successfully interpreted Velázquez’s Hilanderas, one of the great mysteries of art history, as an “allegory of the art of weaving,” by recognizing in the background scene the depiction of the contest between Athena and Arachne. Their dialogue produced a microhistorical contribution to research on the legacy of antiquity, a key focus of the Warburg Library of Cultural Studies.