The Descent from the Cross

The Salon of 1789 opened in the Louvre on 25 August, six weeks after the fall of the Bastille, and number 90 in its catalogue was this altarpiece by Jean-Baptiste Regnault. The comte d'Angiviller, who ran the king's buildings, had ordered it the year before for the chapel of the Trinity, the royal chapel of the palace of Fontainebleau. It was never put up there, and the Louvre gives no reason. Three years later Louis XVI, the king who had paid for it, was deposed.

The canvas is more than four metres high, with an arched top, and Regnault leaves the upper half almost empty, a dark sky with the cross fading into it. Everything happens down at ground level. Christ lies on a white sheet, the crown of thorns and the nails beside him. Mary, in blue, opens her arms and looks up, Mary Magdalene in yellow holds her from behind, and John stands apart on the right, wrapped in red. The picture went first to the Musée du Luxembourg, where it was restored in 1825, and then to the Louvre.