El camino del Calvario

By the 1630s Rubens was the most sought-after painter in Europe, running a large Antwerp workshop that turned out altarpieces for the Catholic revival sweeping the southern Netherlands. This vast canvas, close to 6 metres tall, was made for the Benedictine abbey of Affligem, and Christ's stumble under the cross is built to be read from the floor of a church, far below. The horses rear, the soldiers strain, and Simon of Cyrene braces to take the weight. Rubens was in his late fifties and increasingly ill when work this size left his studio, and he leaned heavily on assistants for it. The painting came to Brussels only after the French revolutionary armies suppressed the abbey in the 1790s.