Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was buried in 1569 in the church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle in Brussels. Some 45 years later his son, the painter Jan Brueghel the Elder, commissioned a picture for the tomb of his parents, and he gave the job to his close friend Rubens. The subject was picked with the dead man in mind. Saint Peter was Pieter Bruegel's patron saint, and this is the moment from the Gospel of Matthew when Christ hands him the keys of heaven. Christ is bare-chested, wrapped in a bright red cloak, with fine golden rays of light around him. One hand is raised, palm out. The other passes down two keys, one gold and one silver. Peter, old, bald and white-bearded under a heavy golden-yellow cloak, takes them by their rings. Behind him are the heads of four apostles, and one of them, a grey-bearded old man, looks straight out of the picture at the viewer.