Adoration of the Magi

The abbot of Saint Michael's Abbey in Antwerp ordered this from Rubens in 1624, the year the monastery marked 500 years since its founding, and Rubens rose to the occasion at astonishing speed. Study of the panel suggests he covered its huge surface, more than four metres high, in roughly two weeks and entirely by his own hand, without the workshop help he usually leaned on for something this size. The kings crowd in to kneel before the Christ Child by torchlight, robes and gold and animals heaped up in his full-throated manner. The young Virgin is thought to carry the face of Isabella Brant, his first wife. She had died the year before he began the picture, and he would marry again four years later.