La Résurrection du Christ

Rubens painted this triptych directly inside Antwerp Cathedral in 1611 and 1612, over the grave of a friend. Jan Moretus ran the Plantin Press, the great Antwerp printing house that had turned out Bibles and scholarly books for the Catholic world, and when he died his widow, Martina Plantin, commissioned the memorial. The wings carry John the Baptist and Saint Martina, the name-saints of the couple, while the central panel shows the risen Christ stepping from the tomb as the guards recoil from the light. The hinged, painted-on-both-sides format was already old-fashioned by then. The panels have stood on the same spot for more than 400 years, and went into restoration in 2026.