The Dead Christ

Nobody ordered this picture. It was still in Philippe de Champaigne's house when he died in 1674, and the Louvre reads that as a sign of a deeply personal work. Christ lies almost flat on a stone slab covered with a white shroud, entirely alone, the crown of thorns propped by his head. Along the edge of the slab, lettered as if carved, are two verses from Saint Paul's letter to the Romans: all who were baptised into Christ were baptised into his death and buried with him. The panel is almost two metres long, and an engraving dated 1654 shows it was finished by then. It probably passed to the convent of Port-Royal des Champs, where it hung in the cloister in 1693. In October 1709, the month Louis XIV had the last nuns expelled, it was moved to the order's house in Paris.