The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden

The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden

The two bodies

Christ is being lowered from the cross, and directly below him his mother has fainted, and her body falls in exactly the curve of his. That rhyme is the picture. Around it Rogier packs ten figures, life-size, into a space no deeper than a cupboard — a carved altarpiece painted, with a gold ground instead of a landscape — and gives each a different way of weeping: John's set jaw, the Magdalene wringing her hands, Nicodemus's careful grip on the legs. The tears on the faces are painted one by one.

It was made for the archers' guild of Leuven around 1435 and is the most copied Netherlandish painting of its century.

Leuven to the Prado

Mary of Hungary acquired it around 1548, in exchange for a copy by Michiel Coxcie and an organ, and it passed to Philip II of Spain, who put it in the Escorial. It has been in the Prado since 1939.

About this print

Made from the Prado's ultra-high-resolution capture, resampled to 12,000 pixels wide. The panel is shaped — a raised centre over the cross — and on a rectangular canvas the black ground the museum photographed it against fills the two upper corners.

Sources: Museo Nacional del Prado, P002825 · Wikidata Q568847 · Wikimedia Commons