La Mise au tombeau

Cambrai in 1616 was a walled border city of the Spanish Netherlands, and a benefactor there gave this Entombment to the Capuchin friars who had recently settled in the town. The canvas is close to 4 metres high, so the body of Christ, carried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus with the women following behind, hangs well above anyone standing in front of it. Rubens was taking orders from religious houses across the whole region at that point, and this one went from his Antwerp studio to a small convent church in a French-speaking town. In 1793 the Revolution closed the convent, and the painting was moved a few streets to the church of Saint-Gery, where it has stood above the altar of the north transept ever since.