Saint Christopher and the hermit

In Rome Rubens had studied the Farnese Hercules, a colossal ancient marble of the hero resting on his club, which then stood in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese. A few years after he came home to Antwerp, that body turns up here, carrying a child across a river. This small oil sketch, from around 1612 or 1613, prepares the outer wings of the great Descent from the Cross in Antwerp cathedral, the paintings you see when the altarpiece is closed. Christopher, whose name means Christ-bearer, wades through the water with the infant on his shoulders, and the museum traces his heavy musculature straight to the Hercules. Facing him is the old hermit of the legend, who had told the giant to serve Christ by carrying travellers over the river, and who holds up a lantern to light the crossing. On the finished altarpiece the two figures are divided between the left and right wings.