Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, St John and St Mary Magdalene

Van Dyck was barely out of his teens when he painted this crucifixion, between 1617 and 1619, working in Rubens's Antwerp studio as his most gifted assistant. It was made as the high altarpiece for a Jesuit church in Bergues, near Dunkirk, and for a long time people simply assumed it was a Rubens, so completely had the young man absorbed his master's weight and drama. The Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene gather beneath the cross in grief. In 1749 Louis XV bought the picture in Antwerp and moved it to a royal chapel at Versailles.