Saint John the Evangelist

In 1609 Spain and the Dutch Republic stopped fighting, and Antwerp, a front-line city for decades, began to refit its churches. Rubens's workshop filled with altarpieces. This panel comes out of the same years and was made for something much quieter, a set of the apostles, each one a half-length figure against a plain ground, painted between 1610 and 1612. The cup in his hands is what names this one. John the Evangelist was said to have been handed poisoned wine and to have blessed it before he drank, and the chalice stayed with him as his sign. The series belonged to the Duke of Lerma, the favourite who governed Spain for Philip III, which is how a group of Antwerp apostles came to Madrid. Most of the set is still in the Prado.