Christ on the Cross

In the 1590s the Plantin press in Antwerp published De Cruce by the scholar Justus Lipsius, a study of how the Romans actually carried out crucifixion, with illustrations of the different shapes of cross. Rubens's elder brother Philip was Lipsius's student, and Rubens later painted the two of them with the old scholar in a group portrait.

The museum suggests that this kind of learned interest in ancient crucifixion may lie behind the picture. Christ's arms are not spread wide in the usual way, and the lifeless body hangs with its full weight, already dead. The darkness behind is the darkness the Gospels describe at the crucifixion, and it pushes the pale figure forward off the panel.

The picture came to Munich in 1806 from the electoral gallery at Düsseldorf, and it hangs on the upper floor of the Alte Pinakothek in gallery IX.