Christ Resurrected

The risen figure, alone

No gospel narrates the moment of rising. The texts give a sealed tomb, a guard in one account, and then an empty tomb found at first light. The Resurrection as a picture is therefore something painting supplied: a figure standing free of the sepulchre, generally with a banner, and often with soldiers below. When the title names only the risen Christ, without the tomb or the guard, the subject has been reduced to the single figure — a devotional image drawn out of a narrative scene.

Its place in the cycle

The pivot. The Passion closes at the entombment; from here the sequence runs through the appearances to the Ascension. Twelve titles in this catalogue carry the word resurrection, against thirty-seven that name a lamentation, a pietà, a dead Christ or a corpse — the collection, like the tradition it comes from, dwells longer on the three days than on what follows them.

The record

The catalogue gives Peter Paul Rubens, 1616, and the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, at 183 by 155 centimetres. The style is entered as Baroque and the artist as Flemish. The measured palette reads as ochre and yellow. Twelve works in this catalogue are attributed to Rubens. The entry carries no commission note.