The Raising of the Cross

By 1638 Rubens was past 60 and often laid up with gout, and that March one of his oldest friends in Antwerp, the spice merchant and collector Cornelis van der Geest, died. Almost 30 years before, van der Geest had arranged for Rubens to paint a great altarpiece of the Raising of the Cross, three hinged panels for the church of Saint Walburga. In 1638 the composition came out as a large print on three sheets, engraved by Hans Witdoeck, a young engraver working for Rubens, with a dedication to van der Geest as the best of men and the oldest of friends. This oil sketch on paper is the model Witdoeck worked from. To make it, Rubens joined the triptych into one continuous scene. The weeping women and children on the left, the men heaving the cross in the middle and the Roman officers on horseback at the right now share a single stretch of ground.