Le Triptyque Rockox

Rubens made this for the tomb of a friend, and the friend was alive to watch him do it. Nicolaas Rockox was the mayor of Antwerp, a collector and one of Rubens's closest companions and patrons. Around 1613 he commissioned this triptych as his own funeral monument, an epitaph to hang over the grave he would share with his wife, Adriana Perez. The two of them kneel on the outer wings, holding a bible and a rosary, gazing in toward the central scene where the risen Christ shows his wounds to the astonished apostles. Arranging your own memorial while you were still healthy was ordinary then, a way to settle how you would be remembered. Rockox lived on until 1640, the same year Rubens himself died.