El Descendimiento

Descent from the Cross (Deposition of Christ)

Artwork · Rogier van der Weyden · before 1443 · oil painting · Museo del Prado

Rogier van der Weyden’s Deposition, painted before 1443 for the chapel of Our Lady Outside the Walls in Leuven: Christ’s body lowered from the cross, the fainting Virgin echoing his pose, the figures set in a shallow gilded shrine. Mary of Hungary acquired it; it came to Spain and to El Escorial.