The Descent from the Cross

When Rubens settled back in Antwerp around 1608, after eight years in Italy, the city's churches were being refurnished. Decades of religious conflict had stripped their altars, and the Catholic authorities wanted grand new images to pull worshippers back. Rubens gave them exactly that. His towering Descent from the Cross for the cathedral, finished in 1614, became one of the most admired paintings in the Low Countries, and he returned to its design more than once. This large canvas repeats that composition. The pale body of Christ slides down along a white winding-sheet, taken up by strained hands and shoulders, while the mourners crowd in close beneath to receive the weight.