Which Flemish Baroque painter created the altarpiece 'The Descent from the Cross'?

Peter Paul Rubens created the famous Flemish Baroque altarpiece “The Descent from the Cross.”

The best-known version is the central panel of a triptych painted between 1612 and 1614 for Antwerp Cathedral. The commission came from the Confraternity of the Arquebusiers, whose patron saint was Saint Christopher. Rubens shows Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Saint John, and others carefully lowering Christ’s lifeless body from the cross.

The composition is intensely dramatic but tightly controlled. A white shroud links the figures in a descending diagonal, while the red cloak of Saint John and the pale body of Christ stand out against the dark setting. The side panels depict the Visitation and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, creating a contrast between the beginning and end of Christ’s earthly life.

Rubens returned to the subject several times, producing related versions now associated with Lille, London, and the Hermitage. That repetition can cause confusion, but the artist remains the canonical answer for the Antwerp altarpiece and its major variants. The work also helped establish Rubens as the leading painter of the Flemish Baroque.