before the raising of the cross: the origins of rubens's earliest antwerp altarpieces

Before The Raising of the Cross: The Origins of Rubens's Earliest Antwerp AltarpiecesAuthor(s): Cynthia LawrenceSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 267-296Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3050692 .

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Before The Raising of the Cross: The Origins of Rubens's Earliest Antwerp Altarpieces Cynthia Lawrence

The period defined by Peter Paul Rubens's return to the

Spanish Netherlands from Rome in December 1608, his

appointment as court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in September 1609, and his signing of the contract for The Raising of the Cross (Figs. 1, 2) in June 1610 marks a critical

phase in his oeuvre and in his career.1 During these eighteen months Rubens was involved in a series of high-profile public commissions in Antwerp, including The Adoration of the Magi (Prado, Madrid), hung in the Town Hall, The Adoration of the

Shepherds and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (Fig. 3), mounted in the Dominican Church (now St. Paul), and The

Assumption of the Virgin, intended for the high altar of Antwerp Cathedral; at the same time, he was involved in the execution of other pictures, such as the monumental Samson and Delilah

(National Gallery, London), for an elite circle of private patrons. It has also been proposed that Rubens may have

already begun work on The Raising of the Cross,2 a project for the no longer extant high altar of the former parish church of St. Walburgis (Fig. 4) that is arguably his most important altarpiece.

Although all of these paintings are well known, their earliest history is obscure. As the most recent investigations show, the documentation of these works is so meager (or lacking altogether) and their preliminary studies are so few

(or even nonexistent) that questions of their origins and evolution have for the most part remained unanswered (or even unasked). That we have so little information about the circumstances that led to the commission of major works such as The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament,3 or, for that matter, The Raising of the Cross,4 is especially frustrating: this data

might tell us more about Rubens's reentry into the art world of the Spanish Netherlands following his eight years in Italy and about his subsequent involvement in the program of church renewal that coincided with the introduction of the Twelve Years Truce (1609-21).5 In particular, it would also

give us a more informed basis for assessing Rubens's response to the formal and iconographic demands of the Post- Tridentine Flemish altarpiece.6

This essay attempts to make greater sense of what we

already know (or think we know) about Rubens's earliest

Antwerp altarpieces by rigorously reevaluating the evidence amassed during the last four centuries in light of new information and new perspectives. It presents both an explanation of the origins and evolution of The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and a more general reassessment of Rubens's career just after his return to

Antwerp, a period that has received relatively little critical attention. This line of inquiry is now possible because of discoveries brought to light during the recent restoration of The Raising of the Cross (initiated in 1978 and completed in 1992) and the subsequent publication of these findings in the

technical report and related works on the altarpiece's history and iconography.7 It also draws on significant new additions to the Rubens literature8 and to research on the political, religious, and cultural milieu of Antwerp and of the Spanish Netherlands more generally at the beginning of the seventeenth century.9

De Bisschop's Drawings and Their Implications Two nearly identical drawings (Figs. 5, 6), both of which have been tentatively attributed to the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Jan de Bisschop,1o provide an important key to the earliest history of Rubens's earliest Antwerp altarpieces." As

initially observed by the noted Rubens scholar Ludwig Bur- chard,12 the owner of one of the drawings (Fig. 5), both works

depict a triptych whose center panel is the modello (a preparatory oil sketch, in this case presumed to be lost) for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.'3 Likewise, the wings of the

triptych have been identified as the two modelli in Dulwich

(Fig. 7), for the saints that were eventually executed on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross (Figs. 2, 24).14

It appears likely that all three modelli were originally owned

by Cornelis van der Geest,15 a wealthy Antwerp merchant and art collector,'6 who was also Rubens's friend and mentor. Van der Geest has been identified as the putative donor of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament (also called the Venerabel Kapel), the chapel of the Sodality of the Holy Name ofJesus (De Soeten Naem), in the Dominican Church;'7 he is also considered to be the

probable instigator (and chief financial backer) of the commission for The Raising of the Cross, a work for the high altar of St.

Walburgis, his parish church, located near his house in the

Mattenstraat.'s The history of the three modelli prior to the

appearance of the Dulwich panels at a sale in The Hague on

September 4, 1747, is not known;19 however, as Hans Vlieghe has noted,20 the date of this sale is useful since it provides a terminus ante quem for the separation of the preparatory studies.

Although discussions of the drawings have duly noted their

incorporation of the three modelli and, in particular, that they include the only record of the lost modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, there has been surprisingly little curios-

ity about the possibility that they depict a genuine study for an authentic work. Initially taking their lead from Burchard, and

more recently from Vlieghe, most scholars appear to agree that because the modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and the modelli for the saints on the exterior of The

Raising of the Cross are so clearly associated with two different altarpieces, the triptych depicted in the two drawings does not (or cannot) represent a coherent design for an actual commission. Explanations for the triptych's "invention" tend to fall into two categories: either the three panels were



268 ART BULLETIN JUNE 1999 VOLUME LXXXI NUMBER 2

1 Peter Paul Rubens, The Raising of the Cross (open position), following the restoration of 1978-92. Antwerp Cathedral (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

physically attached to each other (by a collector or a dealer) and then copied by de Bisschop21 or they were fictively assembled by de Bisschop himself in the drawings.22

The only scholar to have given serious consideration to the

possibility that the triptych represents a real work for a

specific site is Burchard, who subsequently changed his mind. Yet I will claim both that Burchard's initial observation was correct and that it has implications both different and more

significant than he himself appears to have realized. Not only do I propose that the triptych presents a formally and

iconographically lucid program, but I also make three additional claims for it: the triptych represents the earliest version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament; it was designed for the high altar of the church of St. Walburgis; and it is the a. source for both those works with which van der Geest was later

associated--The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the

Holy Sacrament.

Mapping the circuitous route by which the original triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis evolved into these two works

provides a new perspective on several larger issues. What I demonstrate below is that the triptych marks the initial point on an extended time line (Fig. 8) in which previous claims about the evolution of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The Raising of the Cross can be more fully reassessed.

Second, I also attempt to show that the program of the

triptych indicates a previously unrecognized connection between these two altarpieces: it attests not only to their common origins but also to their common iconology in terms of their parallel references to the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Finally, I suggest that the way in which the

triptych evolved into two works that are in some ways similar but in other ways profoundly different offers a new perspective on the larger issue of the design and iconography of

altarpieces in the Spanish Netherlands at the beginning of the seventeenth century and new insight into Rubens's process of invention.

De Bisschop's "Triptych": The Origin and Evolution of The Raising of the Cross and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament The triptych depicted in de Bisschop's drawings presents a unified view that extends across all three panels to create an

elongated version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Its

subject, setting, and composition indicate its debt to Rapha- el's Disputa (Fig. 9), a fresco that Rubens knew firsthand as well as from reproductive engravings.23 Both the triptych and The Disputd, which date exactly one hundred years apart and which may have been commissioned in response to similar circumstances, portray a fictive council composed of Church Fathers, theologians, saints, and holy witnesses who explicate and defend Christ's corporeal presence in the Eucharist



THE ORIGINS OF RUBENS'S EARLIEST ANTWERP ALTARPIECES 269

2 Rubens, The Raising of the Cross (closed position), following the restoration of 1978-92 (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

within an edifice thought to symbolize the Church on earth.24 As depicted in the center panel of the triptych, the church's choir and apse, outlined by what appear to be receding converging colonnades, might have been perceived as a continuation of the actual choir in St. Walburgis in which the

triptych would have been mounted.

Although the triptych's presentation of the Host-the white wafer reserved in the monstrance mounted on the raised altar at the back of the center panel-lacks the focus or

clarity of the same motif in Raphael's fresco, it is nonetheless the symbolic locus of the drawing and, by extension, of both the original program for the high altar of St. Walburgis

(Fig. 10) and The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Further- more, the Host represents Christ in a vertical configuration of the Trinity: this includes the Holy Spirit (indicated by the dove at the top of the center panel,just above the fictive altar) and God (whose image was to have been introduced in the

program at St. Walburgis in the gable located in the upper register of the altarpiece's frame, as it appears in Fig. 10).25 In its presentation of the Trinity surrounded by angels or putti, as well as its symmetrical arrangement of figures to either side of an altar set against an architectural backdrop, the triptych resembles Rubens's Gonzaga Family Adoring the Holy Trinity (1604-5, now partially destroyed, Museo del Palazzo Ducale,




3 Rubens, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Antwerp, church of St. Paul (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

Mantua), the center canvas from his earlier tripartite pro-

gram for the Cappella Maggiore in the former Jesuit church

in Mantua. The Host's central role in the triptych (and, consequently,

in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament) is further under-

scored by groups of figures introduced before and behind the

altar. In the foreground of its center panel are the four

Fathers of the Western Church, with Saints Augustine and

Ambrose on the left and Saints Gregory the Great andJerome on the right. Although the bearded figure who stands to the

right of Ambrose in the drawings (and in The Real Presence in

the Holy Sacrament, Figs. 3 and 11, where he wears a black robe) has been tentatively identified as Saint Paul,26 the "inventor" of the Eucharist, I will argue below that he more likely represents Moses. The identification of the bearded figure is an important point: if it can be shown to be Moses rather than

Paul, the patron of the Antwerp Dominican Church, this would be a significant indication that the triptych originally may have been intended for another site.

Standing around the altar are clusters of figures that were

given greater definition in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. On the stairs just below the altar is an arrangement




4 Anton Gunther Gheringh, The Interior of the Church of St. Walburgis, detail, following the restoration of 1992, showing The Raising of the Cross in situ, 1664. Antwerp, St. Paul (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

of books and scrolls that was omitted in the first version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (recorded in Hendrik

Snyers's engraving of 1643, Fig. 11),27 and that was partially restored in the current version of the work (Fig. 3), which dates from Anton Goubau's extension and restoration of the

panel in 1680;28 both stages are presented, in sequence, in the

diagram (Fig. 8). The wings that are mounted to either side of the triptych's center panel, as shown in the drawings, contain

depictions of four saints-with Amandus and Walburgis on the left, and Eligius and Catherine of Alexandria on the right. This arrangement, which is consistent with the introduction of saints in earlier Flemish triptychs, recalls the program of Rubens's last Roman commission, the second version of the

altarpiece that he painted for the Chiesa Nuova (S. Maria in

Vallicella), which also includes a center panel flanked by

detached side panels that portray saints associated with the

early history of the church (Fig. 12). That the triptych represents a coherent program (rather

than the creative or fictive combination of unrelated panels) is initially indicated by the equal height and the complementary proportions of the three modelli: as depicted by de

Bisschop, the width of each wing measures half that of the center panel-just as one would expect in an actual triptych. This is shown with particular clarity in the Burchard drawing (Fig. 5) where a vertical line appears in the middle of the center panel, just at that point where the wings would meet when the altarpiece was in the closed position.

From a formal perspective, the authenticity of the program is demonstrated by the compositional congruity of the three

joined modelli: they are visually connected by a series of




5 Attributed to Jan de Bisschop, after Rubens, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Location unknown (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

horizontal axes, generated by the repetition or continuation of similar motifs, on the same level. One of these axes occurs in the upper register where putti of the same type and scale hold open books (in the center panel) or reach down to crown the female saints (in the wings). Another horizontal axis is established by the repetition of the monumental figures of the Church Fathers and the saints at about the same distance from the picture plane, and by their isocephalic presentation (in which their heads appear on the same level), a characteristic of Rubens's works from this period. The unification of the eight figures is underscored by the orientation of the saints, who all turn inward toward the center

panel, and particularly by Walburgis, in the left panel, who

appears to gaze at the monstrance, located in the center

panel, that is mounted at her eye level. Walburgis's attitude recalls that of Gregory the Great (left wing, center) and Saint Domitilla (right wing, center) in Rubens's second program for the Chiesa Nuova altar (Fig. 12): depicted on separate slate panels, these figures both look up toward the image of the Vallicella Madonna and Child depicted in the panel above the altar. The unity of the Church Fathers and saints in the

triptych recorded by de Bisschop is given greater emphasis by their similar scale and figure types: they are all conceived in the elongated proportions typical of Rubens's figures of about

1608-9, and they are presented in voluminous robes with

analogous styles of drapery. The exuberant modeling of the robes in both drawings (Figs. 5, 6) alerts us to the accentuation and consistent illumination of the Church Fathers and saints by the light that enters the triptych from the upper right.

The triptych's third horizontal axis is that created by the

stairs, which extend across the base of all three panels. The continuous sweep of the upper tread-along with the shaded riser on which it rests-is clearer in the Vienna drawing (Fig. 6). Here, the top step appears in the left wing beneath Amandus's foot and then continues into the center panel; it

passes behind Ambrose, only to emerge to the left of the

foreground display of books and scrolls and then to disappear behind it; the step reemerges beneath Jerome and continues into the right wing, where it supports Eligius and Catherine. The second step, which is marginally indicated at the lower

edge of the drawing, provides a foundation for Ambrose and the large open volume in the center foreground. A similar

depiction of the steps appears in the drawing owned by Burchard (Fig. 5); however, the definition of the steps in the center panel is significantly less clear than in the Vienna version. While the steps in the triptych's center panel were retained in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, they are

expressed differently in the original (Fig. 11) and final

6 Attributed to de Bisschop, after Rubens, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Vienna, Albertina




7 Rubens, the modelli for the four saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery

(Fig. 3) versions. The steps in the wings of the triptych, which are even more clearly indicated in the Dulwich modelli (Fig. 7), were replaced in the depiction of the four saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross (Fig. 2) with socles mounted on antique plinths.

The iconology of the triptych also supports the claim that it

represents a coherent program. The prominence of the Church Fathers and the four saints, all of whom were active from the fourth through the eighth centuries,29 is consistent with renewed interest in the early Church during the Post- Tridentine period. Not only did the biographies and writings of these figures afford evidence of the continuity of faith and

practice,30 but legends of their courageous confrontations with those who opposed the Church and its teachings also

provided inspirational models for contemporary clergy facing analogous heretical challenges.31 In this respect the Church Fathers and saints can once more be compared to Rubens's

presentation of Gregory and a group of early Roman saints in his second commission for the Chiesa Nuova (Fig. 12), or to his portrayal of early indigenous saints (such as Saints Bavo or

Livinius) in his later Flemish altarpieces. They also recall the Church Fathers and saints (regional and otherwise) in Ru- bens's programs for the ceiling of the Antwerp Jesuit Church

(ca. 1620) and, especially, for The Triumph of the Eucharist

tapestry series (1627-28) that he designed at the request of the Archduchess Isabella.

That all eight of the figures in the foreground of the

triptych were revered during the Post-Tridentine period for their defense of the Church and its teachings unifies them as a

group and underscores the topicality of the altarpiece's iconology in light of the campaign against heresy that was launched in the Spanish Netherlands at the beginning of the Twelve Years Truce.32 At this point heretical beliefs were

perceived by the archdukes and their advisers as a challenge not only to the Church but also to the State. If the charges of

religious dissenters threatened to undermine the policy of

"one country, one faith" that was the cornerstone of the archdukes' statecraft,33 from a slightly different perspective these assaults also threatened to disrupt a fragile political and social unity in what was for all purposes a new country, with a

strong need to define (or redefine) itself, a process in which

religion and the institution of the Church were to play a central role.34 Nowhere in the Spanish Netherlands was the threat of religious dissent more strongly felt than in Antwerp, a city with a proud heritage of confronting heresy that had

only recently emerged from the political and religious con- flicts of the second half of the sixteenth century as a newly




The original altarpiece for St. Walburgis, Antwerp. The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (1609-10). Fig. 6 (the Vienna sketch) and 10 (photographic Figs. 11 (ca. 1643) and 3 (ca. 1680) reconstruction)

The Raising of the Cross as a portico altarpiece. The Raising of the Cross (ca. 1609-11). Fig. 15 (center panel) and 16 (photographic reconstruction) Figs. 7 (wings), 15 (center panel), and 17 (photographic reconstruction);

Figs. 20 (exterior of wings) and 22 (photographic reconstruction)

The Raising of the Cross as a unified view. Fig. 15 (Louvre sketch); Fig. 7 (Dulwich sketches)

The Raising of the Cross (final version). Fig. 1 (interior) and 23 (photographic reconstruction); Fig. 2 (exterior) and 24 (photographic reconstruction)

8 Recension, the evolution of the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis, Antwerp (diagram: Magdalena Kasman)

9 Raphael, The Disputa. Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican (photo: Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

refigured bastion of orthodox Catholicism facing out on Protestant northern Europe.35

Although the biographies of the Church Fathers provide extensive evidence of their encounters with those who opposed the Church in the centuries immediately following its

foundation, the history of the struggle against heresy in

Antwerp (as well as the concurrent campaign to eradicate it in both the city and the diocese of Antwerp) indicates a more

specific rationale for the inclusion of the Antwerp saints

(Amandus, Eligius, and Walburgis) in the program of the

original altarpiece (Fig. 10) for St. Walburgis: in local icono-

graphic traditions, these three figures were synonymous with the introduction of Christianity into the pagan enclave of the Scheldt basin-and thus with the origins of the future city of

Antwerp as a center of orthodox faith.36 The local characterization of the Antwerp saints as missionaries also provided a useful historical precedent for religious orders involved in

effecting conversions or in winning back lapsed Catholics

living in the diocese's rural parishes. Although Catherine's inclusion in this program depends on another local icono-

graphic tradition in which she was paired with Walburgis, her




I f #

10 The proposed program (based on the altar in Fig. 4 and the drawing in Fig. 6) of the original triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

presence is nonetheless appropriate: just as were the Church Fathers and the Antwerp saints, she was revered during the Post-Tridentine period for her role in the conversion of nonbelievers.

While the four saints, unlike the four Church Fathers, were not actually involved in the formulation or explication of

dogma, like the Church Fathers they were active in its

promulgation and defense. The distinction between the




11 Hendrik Snyers, engraving after Rubens, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, 1643 (photo: Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, Antwerp)

common goals but different roles of the Church Fathers and the saints is effectively underscored by the altarpiece's tripartite structure. If all eight of the foreground figures are

formally combined in the triptych's unified presentation, the

relegation of the saints to the wings, where they are further distanced from the center panel by tentative architectural

settings (suggesting arcades, like those in the backgrounds of the Dulwich sketches, and that retained in the underpainting of the right exterior panel of The Raising of the Cross) and by heavy drapery (like the curtain held aside by the putto in the left wing), establishes a subtle but clear distinction between their status and that of the Church Fathers in the center

panel. This arrangement is analogous to the distribution of the figures in the Gonzaga program, which dates some four or five years earlier, where the adult members of the family kneel to either side of the altar in the center of the work while their

progeny and patron saints are relegated to the flanking arcades (again, resembling those in the Dulwich sketches and

apparently in the underpainting of the right exterior panel of The Raising of the Cross). It also recalls the similar arrangement of the later St. Ildefonso Altarpiece (1631-32, Kunsthisto- risches Museum, Vienna), in which the Archdukes Albert and Isabella and their patron saints appear in the wings, in an

architectural setting, once again suggesting an arcade, defined by monumental columns and voluminous drapery.

It is not incidental for the iconology of the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis (Fig. 10), or for that of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The Raising of the Cross, that the Flemish Church's campaign against heresy was intended to confront what was perceived as the most serious manifesta- tion of opposition to the Church-the denial of Christ's

corporeal presence in the Holy Sacrament. In most cases these challenges were directed against the doctrine of Transub-

stantiation, the core of the sacrament of the Eucharist, which

recognizes the actual conversion of the whole substance of the wafer and wine into the whole substance of the body and blood of Christ following the words of consecration spoken during the celebration of the Mass. At the same time, Transubstantiation had other connotations in Antwerp (and in the Spanish Netherlands more generally) at the beginning of the Twelve Years Truce: given the policies of the archdukes and their advisers, the acceptance or denial of Christ's

presence in the consecrated Host constituted a virtual litmus test of support for the State as well as for the Church.

These issues converged in a series of officially sanctioned debates on Transubstantiation that were held in the Spanish Netherlands immediately after the proclamation of the truce.37 In these carefully staged encounters, which were held in

Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Mechelen, hand-picked Catho- lic and Protestant clergy were invited to defend their positions on Christ's presence (or nonpresence) in the sacrament in a

quasi-public setting. Of particular relevance for this essay is the confirence de controverse' that place in the Jesuit residence in

Antwerp on June 14, 1609,38 between two members of the order (Johannes van Gouda and Cornelius a Lapide)39 and two Remonstrant clergymen (Franciscus and Samuel Lansber-

gen) from Rotterdam.40 The debate, the publication of its annotated transcript,41 and the series of rebuttals launched by both sides over the next several years42 all suggest a rationale for the subject of the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis, and, consequently, for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. In addition to Raphael's Disputd, the Antwerp debate may be

responsible for Rubens's characterization of the members of the fictive council as pairs of speakers and listeners, taking part in a series of spirited discussions.

Based on his initial identification of the center panel of the

triptych as the missing modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, Burchard proposed that the triptych represented a

program for the altar of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Dominican Church.43 However, he later retracted this

hypothesis, claiming that the altarpiece in de Bisschop's drawings was only an "alleged triptych [ein angebliches Tripty- chon]" rather than a real one, and that its format and

iconography (specifically its inclusion of the modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament) had led him to make a false deduction about its authenticity. Burchard went on to say that he had come to believe that the three modelli had never been

intended to stand together, and that they had probably been

joined by an unidentified collector.44 What appears to have

initially convinced Burchard that his original argument was flawed is that The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament was executed as a portico altar-that is, without wings-rather




12 Rubens, The Adoration of the Vallicella Madonna and Child. Rome, Chiesa Nuova (S. Maria in Vallicella) (photo: copyright Instituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome)

than as a triptych;45 his misgivings were reinforced by his realization that three of the saints depicted in the triptych's wings, the Antwerp saints who eventually appeared on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross, had strong historical associations with the church of St. Walburgis and thus would most likely not have been included as a group in a commission for the Dominican Church.46 In one respect Burchard was right: the triptych recorded in de Bisschop's drawings was not intended for the Dominican Church. However, at the same time, it is curious that he did not pursue another

explanation that was actually implicit in his own argument- that the triptych had been intended, all along, for the high altar of St. Walburgis (as in Fig. 10), the parish church of Cornelis van der Geest.

The claim that the triptych was designed for St. Walburgis rather than for the Dominican Church47 is confirmed, in part, by the inclusion in its program of the Antwerp saints. As Burchard recognized, these figures were strongly associated with the introduction of Christianity in Antwerp during the seventh and eighth centuries and with the foundation of the

city's first church, which later became the church of St.

Walburgis; consequently, it is literally inconceivable that they would appear together in an altarpiece intended for another site. In its exploitation of the historical association of the

Antwerp saints with the church of St. Walburgis, the triptych is

iconologically similar to Rubens's two programs for the Chiesa Nuova;48 in the latter (Fig. 12) the saints who were identified with the origins of Christianity in Rome, who were involved in the foundation of the original church of S. Maria in Vallicella, and who were in several cases later buried in that

church, are depicted to either side of a panel that forms a frame for the church's most important relic.

Two of the saints who appear in the wings of the triptych were directly responsible for the introduction of Christianity in Antwerp. Eligius, the first to preach Christianity (about 650) in the Burcht (the heart of the future city), was honored as the patronus primarius of the church of St. Walburgis, which, in turn, became the chief site of his veneration in Antwerp. The hill on which Eligius preached was later chosen by Amandus as the site of the city's first church (the so-called

Burchtkerk), where Walburgis took up residence about 730

following her arrival from England.

According to local legends, Walburgis lived and prayed for several years in a crypt in the Burchtkerk;49 in 1613 van der Geest contributed funds toward the excavation and restoration of that crypt (which in the early seventeenth century was identified as the small chamber entered from the opening between the flights of stairs leading up to the choir, as shown in Figs. 4 and 13) in the hope of finding relics that would confirm her term as saint-in-residence.50 The crypt, which became a popular pilgrimage site, was visited in 1615 by the archdukes, who prayed there and kissed Walburgis's relics.51 While Catherine of Alexandria certainly never set foot in

Antwerp, she was linked with Walburgis in Flemish hagiographic tradition as early as the twelfth century based on the

popular belief that the bones of both of them exuded a miraculous oil.52 Walburgis was named patron of the Burcht- kerk when it was rebuilt in the thirteenth century, and she and Catherine were designated as co-patrons of the church's

high altar. Both the traditional pairing and the special status of the female saints are underscored in the triptych (and in the Dulwich modelli) by the crowns of flowers held just above their heads by the hovering putti.

The church of St. Walburgis contained two sites for which the triptych would have been appropriate. The first is the altar of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament (no. 7 in the ground plan, Fig. 13), located in the north transept, just to the right of the entrance to the choir.53 Since van der Geest served as warden (kapelmeester) of this chapel from 1613, and because he later endowed it with a bequest in his will (1638),54 he may well have had a role in the commission of its altarpiece, just as he had been involved in similar projects in other churches in

Antwerp and in Lier.55 The altar, which had lost its original painting (and perhaps its frame as well) during the outbreaks of iconoclasm or due to changes in the status of the cult

during the early years of the Revolt of the Netherlands, was the first in St. Walburgis to acquire an altarpiece following its rededication on October 8, 1585. This picture was a Last

Supper (no longer extant) attributed to Maerten de Vos the

Elder;56 however, because it appears to have dated from 1603 or 1604, and because it was evidently still hanging elsewhere in the church in the eighteenth century, it is unlikely that this work would have been replaced as early as 1610.

On the other hand, the iconography of both the center




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13 Ground plan of St. Walburgis (from Jacobus de Wit, De Kerken van Antwerpen, plan byJ. de Bosschere, pl. XV; photo: Stadsarchief, Antwerp)

panel and the wings of the triptych recorded in de Bisschop's drawings suggests that it was intended for the high altar of St.

Walburgis, located in the unusual raised choir (no. 4 in

Fig. 13) that was finally completed and dedicated in 1574.

Although there is some evidence that an altar was erected in

the choir at this point, only to be destroyed in 1578, there are no records of any painting or sculpture attached to the high altar of St. Walburgis or placed in its choir between 1574 and

June 1610-the earliest documentation of the commission for The Raising of the Cross.57

Following the reconsecration of the church and its yard on

September 3, 1585, the high altar was rededicated in honor of

Walburgis and Catherine in a ceremony in which relics of Ambrose and the Ten Thousand Virgins were placed in the altar table.58 That the high altar of St. Walburgis contained a relic of Ambrose in a period when authentic relics were scarce in the Spanish Netherlands (and those of important saints were especially rare) may explain Ambrose's prominence within the group of the Church Fathers in the center panel of the triptych and in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Here Ambrose is distinguished by his monumentality: he is a full head taller than Jerome, the next tallest figure, and his massive robes dominate the left side of the triptych's center modello. Furthermore, Ambrose's presentation is more impos- ing: this is particularly striking in the final version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (Fig. 3), where he is shown in the

foreground of the picture, turning out toward the viewer,

dressed in a richly brocaded cope with elaborate embroidered

lapels and a towering gold miter.

However, it is even more apparent that the triptych was intended for the high altar at St. Walburgis when it is considered in situ-mounted in the monumental frame above the altar in the raised choir (as in the photographic reconstruction in Fig. 10). Although the altarpiece's frame is no longer extant, it is uniquely recorded in the detail of the choir in Anton Gunther Gheringh's view of the church

interior from 1664 (Fig. 4).59 This picture shows a gilded pelican feeding her young mounted above the gable at the

top of the frame; this motif, which symbolizes Christ's offering of himself for the salvation of mankind, also refers to the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist-a theme addressed in the center panel of the triptych and, later, in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and in the center panel of The Raising of the Cross.

Like Raphael's Disputa (Fig. 9), Rubens's original program for the high altar of St. Walburgis (Fig. 10) included a

depiction of the Trinity; however, the way in which this motif was introduced is instructive for determining the work's

subject and meaning-as well as its intended site. That only the dove of the Holy Spirit appears in the center modello of the

triptych raises questions about the location of depictions of Christ and God. As in his later Triumph of theEucharist series, in

which Christ does not appear, Rubens also omitted a figure of Christ in the configuration of the Trinity in the program for St. Walburgis and in that of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament: in order to underscore the essence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, Christ is included in each case only in

terms of his corporeal presence in the depiction of the consecrated Host contained in the monstrance set on the altar.60 This point indirectly supports Vlieghe's decision to call the panel now in St. Paul (Fig. 3) after the description of its

subject in the 1616 inventory of the Sodality of the Holy Name

ofJesus-" The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. "61

The representation of God in the configuration of the

Trinity in the original program for St. Walburgis (Fig. 10) was almost certainly intended to have been introduced outside the painting, most likely in the gable in the upper register of the frame.62 Although my conception of this configuration is

virtually identical to that proposed by Vlieghe,63 there is one

important difference: while Vlieghe has suggested that the solution was similar to that introduced in The Raising of the

Cross (Fig. 23), where God was depicted at the top of the frame in an arched panel mounted in the gable, I contend that it was the same solution-and the same church and the

same frame. In other words, if the triptych recorded in de

Bisschop's drawings was intended for the high altar of St.

Walburgis, it most likely would have been planned for the same frame in which The Raising of the Cross appears in the detail of the choir in Gheringh's picture (Fig. 4).

The claim that the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis was

designed for a frame with a depiction of God in the upper register is also supported by the upward gaze of the figure with long, dark hair who stands to the right of Ambrose (Figs. 4, 5, 6, 11). The orientation of this figure, whom I believe to be Moses, provides an important clue to his identity. What has not been pointed out is that unlike the other major figures in




the drawings (and in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament), who are presented as pairs, only the dark-haired figure stands

alone, with no apparent counterpart. However, when the

triptych is considered in situ, as mounted in the frame recorded in Figure 10, it seems that this figure does have a

counterpart-the image of God in the upper gable, who is the

recipient of his gaze. Rubens's portrayal of Moses recalls his

presentation of Gregory the Great looking up at the image of the Vallicella Madonna in the first program for the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova (1607-8, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble); it also suggests his portrayal of Gregory and Domitilla gazing up at the same image in the second program (Fig. 12).

My identification of the dark-haired figure as Moses is based not only on its pairing with a depiction of God but also on its

brightly lit face and rapturous expression (especially in Figs. 3 and 11): both of these characteristics are consistent with the

description of Moses' "shining face" (Exod. 34:29-34) after

receiving the tablets of the law from God on Mount Sinai.64 Rubens's treatment of Moses may be a novel iconographic reference to Exodus 34:35, where it is recorded that "the

people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone." Thus, rather than depicting Moses with the horns or hornlike rays of light sprouting from each side of his head that are the legacy of Jerome's incorrect Latin translation of this passage, Rubens shows him in a manner that is consistent with an accurate translation of the original Hebrew text.

Rubens's unusual depiction of Moses (without horns, but with a "shining face") raises the possibility of the involvement of a theologian or a scholar: circumstantial evidence suggests that this may have been Cornelius a Lapide, one of the two

Jesuit participants in the Antwerp debate on Transubstantia-

tion, who was professor of Holy Scripture and of Hebrew at the University of Louvain. Lapide discussed the origins of Moses' "horns" (as well as that of his radiant face) in his

Commentaria in Pentateuchum Mosis (1616),65 an authoritative text that was in preparation at the time of the Antwerp debate, and for which Rubens designed the title page.66 In fact,

Lapide's observations on the horns in his commentary on Moses' "shining face" may also be reflected in Rubens's

drawing for the title page, which includes a depiction of

Moses, without horns but with a bright countenance, that is

similar to his appearance in the de Bisschop drawings and in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.'67 However, while Rubens's drawing does not include either horns or hornlike

rays of light emanating from Moses' head, the latter motif was added by another artist in the final engraving for the title

page of the Commentaria. Finally, the location of the dark-haired figure next to

Ambrose in a scene of the explication and defense of the doctrine of Transubstantiation also supports his identification as Moses. In his discussion of Transubstantiation Ambrose cited Moses' transformation of several natural substances (for example, the changing of his rod into a serpent, and then back into a rod [Exod. 4:3-4]; the transformation of the streams of Egypt from water to blood, and back to water [Exod. 7:20ff]; the sweetening of the bitter waters of Marah [Exod. 25:25]; and the parting and rejoining of the waters of

the Red Sea [Exod. 14:21ff]) as typological parallels for the miraculous transformation of the Eucharistic elements.68 On another level, the proximity of the two figures is consistent with renewed interest in the phenomenon of typological parallels (the concordance of Old and New Testament passages) during the Post-Tridentine period.69 The metamorpho- sis of Moses' rod, perhaps the most popular topos for Transubstantiation during the first decade of the seventeenth

century,70 was introduced by Gouda in his defense of Transub- stantiation in the Antwerp debate,71 and it was later discussed

by Lapide in the Commentaria in Pentateuchum Mosis.72 Both the composition and the iconography of the triptych

indicate that it was intended for the high altar at St. Walbur-

gis. The presentation of the figures of the Church Fathers and the saints suggests that they were intended to be seen from below-a point that is consistent with triptychs having been mounted above the altar in the church's raised choir, to be viewed from the nave. In addition, the altarpiece's lighting scheme appears to have been designed to interact with the

rays of sunlight that entered the choir from the three lancet windows on the south side (on the right in Fig. 4); thus, the natural light of the choir would have enhanced the fictive

light of the picture-just as it would later in The Raising of the Cross. Finally, if one envisions the scene depicted in the

triptych mounted above the altar at the top of the raised choir

(as in Fig. 10), an additional rationale for the motif of the

foreground steps becomes more apparent. While the continuous treads depicted at the base of the de Bisschop drawings may have been initially inspired by those in Raphael's Disputd, in the context of the choir at St. Walburgis, at this time the

only raised choir in Antwerp, they may have been perceived as an illusionistic continuation of the two flights of stairs leading up from the crossing and proceeding from this point as a

single flight leading up to the altar and the picture mounted above it.

The Evolution of de Bisschop's Triptych If the triptych recorded by de Bisschop represents an authentic program designed for the high altar of St. Walburgis, why then was it not executed, as planned? Although there is no obvious explanation, the date of the project, its subject, and, as will be discussed below, the way in which its three modelli were eventually developed into The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (Fig. 3) and the exterior panels of The Raising of the Cross (Fig. 2) provide significant clues.

Based on the evidence at hand, I believe that the triptych was rejected, because the subject of its center panel was not included among those scenes from the life of Christ or from the New Testament condoned by the venerable theologian Joannes Molanus and later approved by the Antwerp Synod in its meeting on May 11, 1610.73 Although it is usually thought that such decrees had little impact, a survey of works produced in Antwerp during this period suggests that in this instance the synod's ruling may have been taken seriously.74 David Freedberg, for example, has observed that "it is clear that many of the works (e.g., those produced by Rubens) of the second decade concentrate on Christological, Eschatologi- cal, and Mariological subjects," while "altarpieces showing scenes from the Infancy or Passion of Christ, or referring




directly to the Resurrection, or of the LastJudgment and the

Assumption of the Virgin dominate the production of that

period."75 Thus, it is possible that the triptych may simply have been

the victim of bad timing: if executed, it would have been one of the earliest (if not the first) large-scale altarpieces erected in Antwerp following the synod's decree, and thus it may have been subjected to closer scrutiny or held to a more exacting standard than earlier or later commissions. If this scenario is

accurate, the fate of the triptych presents an ironic parallel to the history of Rubens's first commission for the Chiesa Nuova, a problematic picture that was quickly taken down and

replaced the following year by a tripartite program (Fig. 12). The way in which the panels of the first program for the

high altar of St. Walburgis (Fig. 10) were eventually integrated into the programs of two new altarpieces also indicates that the synod's ruling was instrumental in the rejection of this

design. As the diagram (Fig. 8) shows, the triptych's center

panel was redesigned as a portico altarpiece, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, that was eventually mounted in the

Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Dominican Church. This suggests that while the panel's subject was evidently not considered appropriate for the high altar of Antwerp's oldest and most venerated parish church, it apparently was acceptable for the altar of a Eucharistic sodality in the church of a

religious order. Here, too, it is significant that most of the works cited by Freedberg as examples of exceptions to the

synod's ruling were commissioned for the churches of orders: this might well be the reason why The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament was hung in the Dominican Church rather than at St. Walburgis;76 at the same time, one cannot rule out the

possibility that it was the intended location of the panel (in the chapel of a Eucharistic sodality) that made it acceptable. However, the rejection of the triptych by the clergy and church officials at St. Walburgis, followed by its acceptance in a modified form by the Dominicans, would also be consistent with what some scholars, including Freedberg, see as the real

significance of the synod's ruling: rather than determining what was or was not acceptable, this pronouncement was intended to give clergy and church authorities control over

art displayed in their respective churches.77 Unlike the scene in the triptych's center panel, the figures

of the saints depicted in the wings evidently posed no

iconographic problems; thus, they were retained in the revised program of that triptych later mounted above the high altar at St. Walburgis, on the exterior of that altarpiece we know as The Raising of the Cross. The derivation of both The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The Raising of the Cross from the program recorded in de Bisschop's drawings (as

diagrammed in Fig. 8) is even more clearly indicated by the

reassignment of putti. As originally noted by Burchard, the

putto crowning Catherine with flowers in the right wing of the

triptych, and in the corresponding panel in Dulwich (Fig. 7), was transferred to the upper left of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, where it now holds an open book.78 Likewise, the

putto that appears in the upper left of the triptych's center

panel was reversed and moved to the panel now mounted on the right exterior wing (Fig. 2) of The Raising of the Cross, where it now holds a crown of flowers.

From the Original Altarpiece for St. Walburgis to The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament The transformation of the center modello in the original triptych for St. Walburgis (Fig. 10) into The Real Presence in the

Holy Sacrament, an independent work that by 1611 was

hanging above the altar in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Dominican Church,79 raises once again the role of van der Geest in this saga. Because he contributed funds toward the construction of a marble enclosure for the chapel in 1616, it is thought that van der Geest may have been involved in the commission and/or the payment for The Real Presence in the

Holy Sacrament.80 Furthermore, that the subject of the picture was consistent with his own fervent devotion to the Eucharist raises the question of whether van der Geest may have been a member of the Sodality of the Holy Name ofJesus.

The scene of the fictive council in the triptych's center

panel would have been especially appropriate for the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, the primary site of the celebration of the Eucharist in the Dominican Church prior to the completion of its choir and high altar in 1639. The panel's depiction of the veneration of the Host would also have underscored the Dominicans' ardent devotion to the Eucharist, at the same time that it acknowledged the chapel's dedication to the Holy Sacrament.

It is significant for the argument presented here that in the

program for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament Rubens revised the iconography of the original triptych's center panel so that it would have been even more appropriate for its new location. A comparison of the center modello (Figs. 5, 6) with the original version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament

(Fig. 11) indicates that Rubens removed certain figures at the same time that he introduced others. Most relevant for the issue of the altarpiece's relocation to the Dominican Church is the cluster of figures just to the right of the altar in the

engraving (Fig. 11),81 who are associated with the invention of the Feast of Corpus Christi,82 a universal feast of the Church that had originated in the nearby bishopric of Liege and which had throughout its long history been fervently pro- moted by the Dominicans.

Some of the most important discrepancies between the

iconography of the triptych's center panel and that of the

original version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament result

from the fact that the design of the frame in which the

triptych would have been placed above the high altar in St.

Walburgis differed from that in which its center panel was mounted in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Dominican Church. Although the frame in the Dominican Church (which is no longer extant, and which is neither recorded nor described) may have been executed to accom- modate the new altarpiece, as Vlieghe has succinctly demonstrated, the format, proportions, and iconography of the

original panel (recorded in reverse in the engraving in

Fig. 11) all suggest that the frame predated the work.83 This claim can be demonstrated in several ways. First, since

the design of the frame in the Dominican Church contained columns, it apparently precluded the attachment of wings. As Burchard realized, this would explain why the modello in the

triptych's center panel was not simply introduced into a new

program but instead was redesigned as a more modern




Italianate portico altarpiece. Second, as initially recognized by Vlieghe, the difference in the proportions of the modello and the original version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament shows that the latter was both taller and narrower,

thereby indicating that the aperture of the frame in the Dominican Church would have differed significantly from that in St. Walburgis.84 Such a difference would account for the addition of more space at the top and bottom of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, the latter raising the picture higher above the altar table and making it more visible.

Finally, the most significant difference in the design of the frames in St. Walburgis and in the Dominican Church is indicated by the introduction in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament of a figure of God, who descends in a mist of radiance at the top of the open exedra directly above the dove and the monstrance. As Vlieghe has noted, this addition

suggests that unlike the frame in St. Walburgis, which af- forded the possibility of introducing God's image outside the

picture, the frame in the Dominican Church evidently did not offer a similar opportunity.85 Another indication that the

triptych's center panel was designed for one frame and was then redesigned following its reassignment to another is Moses' upward gaze. This detail, which makes better sense in the context of the frame in St. Walburgis (Fig. 10), where God

appears in the gable at the top of the frame, is not as successful in either version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (Figs. 11, 3), where God is relegated to the back of the picture, behind Moses' line of vision.86

As noted earlier, and as indicated in the differences between the two versions of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament in the diagram in Figure 8, the panel was enlarged a second time in order to fill the aperture of a new frame executed by Pieter Verbruggen the Elder during the renovation of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament between 1654 1658.87 Although the enlargement of the picture is referred to in records from 1657, additional documentation discovered

by Vlieghe indicates that it was probably not undertaken until 1680.88 At this point Goubau extended the panel on all four

sides; as a comparison of the original (Fig. 11) and current

(Fig. 3) versions of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament

suggests, the addition at the top of the panel allowed more

space above the figure of God; the augmentation of the panel at the base provided an opportunity to reinsert a portion of the original display of books and to raise the scene of the

fictive council still higher above the altar table and the tabernacle so that it showed to greater advantage.

From the Original Altarpiece for St. Walburgis to The Raising of the Cross At about the same point that the center modello of the original triptych for St. Walburgis (as in Fig. 10) was reinvented as The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (as in Fig. 11), the triptych itself was replaced by a new program for the high altar of St.

Walburgis that was consistent with the demands of the

Antwerp Synod. The subject of this work was the Raising of the Cross, a scene that encouraged meditation on Christ's sacrifice for mankind, as reenacted in the celebration of Mass before the altar just below. While the subject of the Raising of the Cross had apparently never before appeared in the center

14 After Rubens, The Raising of the Cross. Grasse, cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Puy (photo: cliche Reunion des Musees Nationaux--Agence Photographique)

panel of a Netherlandish triptych,89 it had been introduced as a vignette in a number of scenes of the Passion produced in

Antwerp between 1550 and 1610,90 and it had appeared as the

subject of an important print by Hieronymus Wierix (after Bernardino Passeri) in Jerome Nadal's Evangelicae Historiae

Imagines (Antwerp, 1595).91 Although the possibility that Rubens may have first encountered this motif in Antwerp, prior to his sojourn in Italy, has not been widely recognized, these cases, together with better-known examples of the

Raising of the Cross in works by Italian, German, and Spanish artists, suggest a richer visual tradition for Rubens's several

depictions of this subject than has previously been considered.92

The new subject may have been the choice of van der Geest, who was identified by Rubens in the dedication of the modello for the engraved version (1638) of The Raising of the Cross as the "chief author and promoter" of the project for St.

Walburgis.93 However, it is also significant that Rubens had

already executed a scene of the Raising of the Cross (no longer extant; a copy, by an unknown artist, is depicted in

Fig. 14) in the tripartite program for the Chapel of St. Helena in the Roman church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, the former titular church of Archduke Albert.94 Thus, the selection of this subject for the high altar at St. Walburgis may have alluded not only to Rubens's first commission from what was now one of his two most important patrons but also to the archdukes' personal devotion to the Eucharist, their public veneration of this newly politicized sacrament through partici- pation in processions and pilgrimages, and their encourage-




15 Rubens, the modelli for The Raising of the Cross. Paris, Mus6e du Louvre (photo: cliche R6union des Mus6es Nationaux-Agence Photographique)

ment of Eucharistic fraternities (such as that in the Domini- can Church).95

The choice of the Raising of the Cross may also have been

prompted by its iconological parallels with the subject of the

panel it presumably replaced-the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament. In different ways and from different

perspectives both subjects address the phenomenon of Christ's sacrifice: The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament refers to the reenactment of that sacrifice (the sacrifice of the altar), while The Raising of the Cross depicts the actual sacrifice (the sacrifice of the cross). At the same time, both works allude to the doctrine of Transubstantiation; if the first extols the "real

presence" of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, the second characterizes Rubens's realistic depiction of Christ as the

Holy Sacrament in its dramatic presentation of his pale blood-streaked body, mounted in a monstrancelike frame and lifted up above the altarjust below.96

While the original triptych for the high altar of St. Walbur-

gis portrays a scene of the explication and defense of

Transubstantiation, The Raising of the Cross depicts an event that was a traditional literary and pictorial parallel for the miraculous transformation of the Eucharistic wafer during the celebration of the Mass. In earlier Netherlandish art and in guides to the Mass and devotional manuals that were intended to educate the laity by juxtaposing scenes from the Passion with stages in the Mass, the raising of Christ's body on the cross is traditionally paired with a depiction of elevatio-- that moment when the celebrant lifts the consecrated Host

high above his head for the adoration of the congregation.97 From the twelfth century on, the elevation of the Host, which

signals the accomplished transformation of the Eucharistic

wafer, was popularly perceived as the most important point in the Mass as well as the central moment in the religious experience of the laity who witnessed it.98 Based on the traditional pairing of the Elevation of the Cross and the ritual of elevatio,99 the scene in Rubens's open altarpiece would have

presented a dramatic and iconographically appropriate back-

drop for the parallel event taking place at the altar below.

Here the pairing of the monumental scene of the Raising of the Cross and the act of elevatio would have given this association new immediacy in a period in which the reifica- tion of the sacraments and the liturgy was much esteemed.

Furthermore, the linking of the concept of elevatio (at the

altar) with the physical act of elevation (in the center panel of The Raising of the Cross) suggests a play on word and image not unlike that which occurs in the three panels of Rubens's Descent from the Cross (1611-14, Antwerp Cathedral).100

An overview of preparatory studies for The Raising of the Cross suggests that the invention of its final program was not as

simple as merely inserting a new subject in the center panel of the triptych: the substitution of the Raising of the Cross for the fictive assembly gathered around the Host affected the

design of the entire altarpiece, thus initiating a series of

changes, which appear to have been implemented incremen-

tally rather than in a single revision. Some of these stages have been previously proposed by Burchard and by John Rupert Martin; this essay provides an opportunity to reassess their claims and, in some cases, to integrate them into a new

hypothesis about the invention of The Raising of the Cross.

The Raising of the Cross as a Portico Altarpiece John Rupert Martin was the first to observe that the center

panel of Rubens's tripartite modello for The Raising of the Cross in the Louvre (Fig. 15), which shows the scene of the

elevation, with the crucifixion of the two thieves and a group of Roman soldiers in the background, may have at one point represented a self-contained narrative unit that could conceiv-

ably have stood on its own.101 This prompted him to wonder whether Rubens might have considered The Raising of the Cross as a portico altarpiece (as it appears, in context, in the

photographic reconstruction in Fig. 16), analogous to The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. However, because Martin then went on to trace the development of The Raising of the Cross as a triptych, my guess is that he considered the portico format option only as an initial stage in the evolution of the

altarpiece (as indicated in the diagram in Fig. 8).




16 The high altar of St. Walburgis designed as a portico altarpiece with the center Louvre modello (as in Fig. 15) (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

However, several additional observations would appear to lend support to Martin's contention that the center panel of the Louvre modello might have been intended, or might even have functioned, however briefly, as an independent work.

First, while still in Rome, Rubens had executed a scene of the

Raising of the Cross (Fig. 14) as part of a tripartite program for the Chapel of St. Helena in S. Croce in Gerusalemme.102 Located in an arched recessed niche on the right wall of the

chapel, across from The Mocking of Christ (cathedral of

Notre-Dame-du-Puy, Grasse), The Raising of the Cross, in the manner of a portico altar, stood alone. Like The Raising of the Cross in the S. Croce in Gerusalemme program, the scene in the center panel of the Louvre modello may also have been intended to be executed with an arched top: delineated by subtle contrasts of light and shadow, this arch ascends from a

point just above the titolo (placard) on the left,103 passes over the two mounted Roman soldiers in the background, and descends through the upright cross of the thief on the right. This arched silhouette, which Rubens knew from both Italian and Flemish examples, is iconographically appropriate since it suggests a triumphal arch as a frame for a scene of the

Crucifixion, which signifies Christ's triumph over sin and death.104

Second, Frans Baudouin has recently published two views of the interior of St. Walburgis (Prado, Madrid, and Konink-

lijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belgi&, Brussels) that show the high altar surmounted with a portico altar (whose subject cannot be determined) rather than a triptych.105 However, there is no documentation other than these pictures to support the claim that The Raising of the Cross had

originally been displayed, even temporarily, in the same manner, whereas Rubens's Descent from the Cross was initially mounted without its wings and thus for a brief period did function as a portico altarpiece.106

Third, although the increased frequency of the portico format in commissions for altarpieces in the Spanish Nether- lands during the first quarter of the seventeenth century has been interpreted as indicative of a growing taste for more modern Italianate works, the cost differential between the

portico and the triptych could well have been a consideration in the commission for St. Walburgis. Clearly, the portico format represents a significantly less expensive option: its

painted surface is only a third of that of a triptych (given a

portico panel the same size as the center panel of a triptych), or a quarter of that of a triptych that includes a picture on the reverse of its center panel. The triptych's greater surface area




17 The program of the triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis with the Dulwich modelli (Fig. 7) and the center Louvre modello (Fig. 15) (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

would also be a consideration in terms of the long-term expenses of cleaning and restoration; at the same time, the addition of wings requires a larger and heavier "box" (in order to stabilize the frame and wings), as well as a larger, sturdier frame.107 These cost differences would have become

particularly striking during the Post-Tridentine period, given the demand for larger altarpieces to mark the high altar, where the sacrament was now reserved: in the open position, The Raising of the Cross, the largest triptych ever executed in

Antwerp, measured 15 by 21 feet, and the entire ensemble

(the panels set in a monumental carved frame, which, itself, represented a significant addition to the cost of the project), reached a height of 35 feet.08s However, at the same time that the portico format became increasingly popular, especially for high altars, it is significant, as Freedberg has observed, that the triptych remained the preferred type for small-scale works with devotional themes.'09 Thus, in addition to the

greater novelty of the Italian-inspired portico altarpiece, the fact that it was less costly both to produce and to maintain made it an attractive option to the traditional triptych. The choice of the triptych format in the commission for the high altar of St. Walburgis may reflect the preference of van der Geest, whose taste for fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Nether- landish art is reflected in those works he commissioned and

collected.110 And, as noted earlier, the persistence of the

triptych format is but one of a number of archaisms in Rubens's oeuvre, an issue that calls for further investiga- tion.111

The Raising of the Cross as a Triptych: The Interior Program Although Martin eventually concluded that it was more likely that the altarpiece for St. Walburgis had been planned from the beginning as a triptych, he initially envisioned its program as including the Raising of the Cross, as depicted in the center

panel of the Louvre modello (Fig. 15), flanked by the saints recorded in the Dulwich modelli (Fig. 7), as illustrated in the

photographic reconstruction in Figure 17.112 Not only is this

configuration similar to the original program for the high altar of St. Walburgis, it is also analogous to designs for

altarpieces (or chapel programs) executed by Rubens both

prior to and following the works under consideration in this

essay. These include the second program for the Chiesa Nuova (Fig. 11), where figures of saints associated with the

early history of the church are presented in separate detached

panels, to either side of a scene of angels adoring the Vallicella Madonna and Child, and The Resurrection (1612, Fig. 18), where figures of the donors' patron saints mounted on socles much like those that support the four Antwerp saints




on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross (as in Fig. 2) appear to either side of a scene of the Resurrection.

The outline of the arch at the top of the center panel of the Louvre modello is echoed by congruent incised arcs at the top of the rectangular Dulwich modelli. These arcs are indicated by broken lines in the line drawing in Figure 19: the arc on the left springs from a point on the left side of the frame slightly above the heads of Amandus and Walburgis to a point at the center of the upper edge, while a corresponding arc, drawn in reverse, appears in the right wing.113 Although Burchard commented on the rounded arcs inscribed in the Dulwich

panels, he did not mention the presence of a second type, which has since been noted by Baudouin:114 these arcs are

expressed by a segmented horizontal indentation (denoted by the parallel lines in Fig. 19) that originate near the top of the outside edges of the panel and which then curve upward to form an ogival arch. That both types of silhouettes, the rounded arc and the indented ogival arc,115 appear in

sixteenth-century Flemish triptychs represents yet another

archaizing tendency in the program for the high altar of St.

Walburgis. Although the rounded arcs inscribed on the Dulwich

modelli are consistent with the outline of the arch at the top of the center panel of the Louvre modello, their angle is inconsis- tent with the mounting of the saints on the interior of the

wings. Therefore, one might conclude that both sets of arcs

probably date to a later stage in the program's evolution- when it had already been determined that the saints were to be moved to the exterior of the wings, but when it was still

planned that the triptych would be executed with a rounded

upper frame.116

The Raising of the Cross as a Triptych: The Exterior One aspect of the program for the original triptych for the

high altar of St. Walburgis that has not yet been discussed is what was intended to be depicted in the exterior panels of its

wings. Although neither the program recorded in de Biss-

chop's drawings (Figs. 5, 6) nor a consideration of that

program in situ (Fig. 10) indicates Rubens's intentions, there is some evidence of what he might have had in mind at this

point in the evolution of the program. In his notes on Rubens's Moses and the Brazen Serpent (Fig.

20) Burchard suggested that it represented a modello for a picture that was to have been mounted on the reverse of The

Raising of the Cross."7 His hypothesis was likely generated, at least initially, by formal considerations. The Courtauld panel had originally been planned with an arched top that would have been more or less congruent with the arch outlined at the top of the center panel of the Louvre modello and with the rounded arcs incised in the upper registers of the Dulwich modelli (as in Figs. 7 and 19).11s Still visible at the top of the Courtauld panel is the outline of an arch originating above the head of the woman holding up her child on the left, continuing above the serpent mounted on the pole, and then

descending to a point just above the head of Aaron on the right. Adjacent to his notation regarding the probable location of the scene of Moses and the Brazen Serpent in the

program of The Raising of the Cross, Burchard sketched the triptych he envisioned (Fig. 21), as seen from the back, in

18 Rubens, The Resurrection. Antwerp Cathedral (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

which the center and side panels are depicted with congruent arched silhouettes.

The scene in the Courtauld panel depicts the story of Moses and the Brazen Serpent as recorded in Numbers 21:4-9: Moses (with Aaron and Eleazer) stands to the right of the pole mounted with the serpent, with the Israelites on the left gazing up toward what will give them life, or lying, already dead, at the base. Burchard recognized that Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Crucifixion, expressed here in terms of the Raising of the Cross, represented typological parallels;11' their association is based on the passage in John 3:14-"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."'12 In the case under discussion, the image of the serpent raised on a pole before the tormented Israelites is analogous to the presentation of the

body of Christ raised on the cross before sinful mankind. Furthermore, both scenes symbolize a desire for salvation: the afflicted Israelites look up to the serpent mounted on the pole so that they might be healed, while sinful Christians who look

up in faith to the raised body of Christ on the cross do so in the hope that they will be saved from death. The latter

concept is especially relevant given the venerable tradition, popular from the medieval period, that those who viewed the elevation of the Host would thereby receive significant ben-

efits.121 Thus, Rubens's characterization of the Crucifixion in terms of the Raising of the Cross underscored the analogy introduced in John's gospel in a new and more compelling way while, at the same time, it recalled earlier devotional

practices. Although Burchard's proposal that the scene of Moses and

the Brazen Serpent was intended for the back of The Raising of the Cross is intriguing, it is ultimately improbable. Because the

altarpiece was mounted above the altar table at the rear of the raised and recessed choir in St. Walburgis (indicated as no. 4 in the ground plan, Fig. 13), the back of the center panel would likely have faced on the blind eastern wall. Since the

space between the wall and the altar would have allowed only limited passage, it seems unlikely that the triptych would or even could have been viewed from this angle: therefore, the




19 Line drawing of the four saints in the Dulwich modelli (Fig. 7) (from Baudouin, 1992, fig. 50; photo: author, courtesy Dr. Frans Baudouin)

likelihood that such a large and costly work would ever have been executed as Burchard postulated seems doubtful.122

However, this reservation does not preclude the inclusion of a depiction of Moses and the Brazen Serpent in the evolution of The Raising of the Cross; in fact, the program of the

triptych at this stage suggests an even more likely possibility. Because Burchard apparently thought that the figures of the

Antwerp saints had always been assigned to the exterior

panels of the wings in The Raising of the Cross, he seems not to have considered that a scene of Moses and the Brazen Serpent might have been intended for this space (as it appears in the

photographic reconstruction in Fig. 22). The introduction of Moses and the Brazen Serpent on the exterior of the wings would not only have been formally congruent with a scene of the Raising of the Cross, particularly if both were still intended (at this stage) to be depicted with rounded tops, but it would also have created a highly satisfactory iconographic configuration in which an Old Testament scene would have

opened to reveal its New Testament parallel.123

The Raising of the Cross as a Unified View: The Interior As Martin recognized, at some point Rubens decided to

develop the center panel of the Louvre modello into a unified scene of the Crucifixion that extended across all three panels, a configuration frequently found in sixteenth-century Ant-

werp triptychs.124 According to Martin's hypothesis, at this

point Rubens removed the Roman soldiers and the two

20 Rubens, Moses and the Brazen Serpent. London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, Princes Gate Collection

I'I 21 Ludwig Burchard, line drawing of the triptych for St. Walburgis. Antwerp, Nationaal Centrum voor de Plastische Kunsten van de 16de en de 17de Eeuw, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard (photo: author, courtesy the Nationaal Centrum voor de Plastische Kunsten van de 16de en de 17de Eeuw)

thieves from the background of the center panel and transferred them to the right wing, where they replaced the figures of Eligius and Catherine. Rubens also eliminated the figures of Amandus and Walburgis from the left wing, displacing them with Mary and SaintJohn the Evangelist and the throng of grieving women and children.125

At the same time, the scene in the center panel of the Louvre modello was redesigned so that it now focused exclu-

sively on the nearly upright cross, bearing a figure of Christ




22 The exterior of the triptych for the high altar in St. Walburgis with Moses and the Brazen Serpent (Fig. 20) (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

who is redirected toward the viewer, but who also looks up toward the depiction of God in the gable at the top of the frame. One of the most significant differences between the

open positions of the initial program for the high altar of St.

Walburgis (Fig. 10) and the final version (Fig. 23) is the elimination of any reference to the Trinity, a motif that was retained in the iconographic program of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.

In the final version of The Raising of the Cross Rubens returned to the same type of unified view that he had introduced in the original program for the high altar of St.

Walburgis: this supports, from another perspective, the hypothesis that the triptych recorded in de Bisschop's drawings had been intended, from the beginning, for that church's elevated and recessed choir. As indicated in Gheringh's view of the choir, this space would have required a "large and legible picture," which despite being set well back in the choir and mounted high above the nave and crossing would still have been clear to the congregation standing in the nave.126 Here the renewed choice of a continuous panorama, rather than three independent scenes (as in The Descent from the Cross or The Resurrection, Fig. 18), would have contributed to the

altarpiece's legibility.

At the same time, the choice of a single unified scene would also have increased the triptych's illusionistic potential. In contrast to the program illustrated in the photographic reproduction in Figure 17, where the figures of the saints

flanking the scene of the Raising of the Cross tend to negate its verisimilitude, the continuous view in the final version

encourages the perception that the event itself is actually taking place before our eyes.127 As recorded in Gheringh's detail, the open triptych, set in its monumental frame, would have filled the darkened choir, thereby enhancing the illusion that the Crucifixion, dramatically struck by the light of the three lancet windows on the right, was actually occurring on

Golgotha-here simulated by the fictive "hill" created by the church's unusual raised choir.

The Raising of the Cross as a Unified View: The Exterior of the

Wings The adoption of a unified view in the interior of The Raising of the Cross required the transfer of the four saints to the exterior of the wings (as shown in the diagram in Fig. 8 and in the

photographic reconstruction in Fig. 24). This relocation may have been useful to Rubens since it addressed the awkward

stylistic dissonance created by the juxtaposition of the saints




23 The final program of the interior of the triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis with Rubens's Raising of the Cross (Fig. 1) (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

with the figures in the center panel in the Louvre modello. When these three modelli are viewed together (as in the

photographic reproduction in Fig. 17), it is apparent that even though they were produced during the same brief span of time, they actually can be assigned to different stylistic phases in Rubens's oeuvre. The saints are closer to figures in his Italian or Antwerp pictures of 1608-9 (as in Fig. 12), while the depiction of Christ and his executioners in the scene of the Raising of the Cross indicates a new direction that was to be fulfilled in the final altarpiece-one of the masterpieces of Flemish Baroque art.128 At the same time, the observation that the saints appear to date from the period of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament rather than from that of The

Raising of the Cross129 would also tend to confirm, from yet another perspective, the authenticity of the triptych recorded in the de Bisschop drawings.

Rubens himself may have realized the stylistic discrepancy between the saints in the Dulwich modelli and the figures in the center panel of his Louvre modello, as indicated by what

appears to be the intentional accentuation of the saints' archaic tendencies in the final work (Fig. 2).130 When Rubens moved the saints from the interior of the wings to the exterior, he recast the painted figures as brilliantly polychromed late Gothic sculptures (an interesting twist on the traditional

grisaille statuettes that appear on the exteriors of earlier

Flemish triptychs),"31 mounted on decorated socles. The status of Walburgis and Catherine as co-patrons of the altar was reinforced in the final program of The Raising of the Cross by narrative scenes placed to either side of the tabernacle (which was mounted with a scene of the Crucifixion that is now presumed to be lost) in the predella (as it appears in a detail of the altar, with the predella, from Gheringh's picture, Fig. 25). These include Saint Walburgis Calming a Storm at Sea

(Fig. 26) and The Body of Saint Catherine ofAlexandria Carried by Angels (Fig. 27).132

At the same time, the transfer of the four saints to the exterior of The Raising of the Cross would have made the scene of Moses and the Brazen Serpent redundant; this may provide an answer to the unresolved question, posed by Burchard and others, about why the painting for which the large Courtauld

panel is a modello was apparently never executed.133 However, it would appear that certain elements from Moses and the Brazen Serpent, albeit redesigned and reinterpreted, were reintroduced in the scene in the open triptych: the muscular

figures of the writhing Israelites in the foreground of Moses and the Brazen Serpent are echoed in the burly figures lifting the cross in the altarpiece at St. Walburgis; the old woman and the mothers and children to the left of the pole reappear in the

group of weeping women and children in the triptych's left

wing; and Moses raising his rod is echoed in the mounted




24 The final program of the exterior of the triptych for the high altar of St. Walburgis (Fig. 2) (reconstruction: Magdalena Kasman)

25 Detail of Fig. 4, the table and predella of the high altar, St. Walburgis

centurion in the right wing, who lifts his baton to signal the

raising of the cross.134 From this point on the history of The Raising of the Cross

would appear to follow the established sequence of events

beginning in June 1610.135 If the scenario developed here is

accurate, the definitive formulation of the triptych's final

26 Rubens, Saint Walburgis Calming a Storm at Sea. Leipzig, Museum der Bildenden Kiinste zu Leipzig

program may be more narrowly dated to that period circum- scribed by the Antwerp Synod's decree of May 11, 1610, and the signing of the contract for The Raising of the Cross the

following month.136 It would appear that during this brief




27 After Rubens, Angels Transporting the Dead Body of Saint Catherine ofAlexandria. Location unknown (photo: copyright IRPA-KIK, Brussels)

interval Rubens reinvented the commission for St. Walburgis by substituting a Passion narrative that provided a Christologi- cal expression of the doctrine of Transubstantiation for a

theological summa that documented the early history of its

explication and justification. In doing so Rubens demonstrated once again, as he had in his two commissions for S. Maria in Vallicella, his ability not only to invent, and perhaps even more important, to reinvent, but also to restate in

original and persuasive pictorial terms one of the most

complex themes of the Post-Tridentine period.

Cynthia Lawrence, professor of art history at Temple University, has

published on early modern painting and sculpture in Belgium and the Netherlands and on problems of patronage. She is completing monographs on Rubens's Raising of the Cross and the monuments

ofDutch naval heroes [Department of Art History, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19122].

Frequently Cited Sources

Rubenianum: Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Nationaal Centrum voor de Plastische Kunsten van de 16de en de 17de Eeuw, Antwerp.

Baudouin, Frans, 1972, "Altars and Altarpieces before 1620," in Rubens before 1620, ed. John Rupert Martin (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 45-57.

,1992, "De kruisoprichting van Pieter Paul Rubens," in De kruisoprichting van Peter Paul Rubens, by Roger d'Hulst et al. (Brussels: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Bestuur Monumenten en Landschappen), 43-96.

Freedberg, David, "Painting and the Counter Reformation in the Age of

Rubens," in The Age ofRubens, ed. Peter C. Sutton et al. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1993), 131-45.

Glen, Thomas, Rubens and the Counter Reformation: Studies in His Religious Painting between 1609 and 1620 (New York: Garland, 1977).

Glfick, Gustav, "Nachtrage," in Rubens, Van Dyck und ihr Kreis (Vienna: A.

Schroll, 1933). Held, Julius, Oil Sketches, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). Knipping, J. B., The Iconography of the Counter Reformation in the Netherlands,

2 vols. (Leiden: B. De Graf-Nieuwkoop and A. W. Sijthoff, 1974). Martin, John Rupert, Rubens: The Antwerp Altarpieces; "The Raising of the Cross"

and "The Descent from the Cross" (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1969). Rooses, Max, L'oeuvre deP P Rubens: Histoire et description de ses tableaux et dessins,

5 vols. (Antwerp:J. Maes, 1886-92).

Vlieghe, Hans, 1972, Saints, 2 vols., Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. 8 (London: Phaidon).

, 1997, review of Rubens zwischen Predigt und Kunst: Der Hochaltar fir die

Walburgenkirche in Antwerpen, by Ulrich Heinen, Simiolus 25, nos. 2-3: 250-52.

Notes

My sincerest thanks go to John T. Paoletti and the two anonymous Art Bulletin reviewers, whose comments and suggestions have made this article more readable and more convincing. I would also like to thank Martin Eidelberg, Barbara Haeger, and David Lawrence for their remarks on a late draft of this

manuscript; Arnout Balis, Helen Braham, Walter Liedtke, Hans Vlieghe, and

Jack Wasserman for their observations on a broad range of Rubens problems; Miss Braham and Nora de Poorter for providing access to notes and

photographs; Gunther Haase and Gerda Panofsky-S6rgel for their advice on the transcription and translation of the passages from Burchard's notes; Father Richard J. Regan, S.J., for his translation of the Latin passages; and

Magdalena Kasman for generating the photographic reconstructions. Support for researching this essay, which is excerpted from my monograph (in progress) on Rubens's Raising of the Cross, was provided by Temple University.

The photographic reconstructions are intended to reunite the pictures and frame discussed in this essay in their original setting. The outline drawing of the high altar and choir of St. Walburgis (in Figs. 10, 16, 17, 22-24) is based on that by Pieter Verhaert in Gustav Gliick, "Rubens' Kreuzaufrichtungsaltar," in Belgische Kiinstdenkmahler, vol. 2, ed. Paul Clemen (Munich: F Bruckmann, 1923), fig. 130, which in turn depends on a detail of the choir in Anton

Gheringh's view (Fig. 4) of the interior of St. Walburgis (St. Paul, Antwerp). Because Gheringh's rendition of the altar is more intuitive than analytic, neither his version of the frame nor, consequently, Verhaert's is entirely accurate. This means that one cannot expect complete congruity between the

drawing of the frame and photographs introduced into its apertures; therefore, whether a photograph fits or does not fit a particular aperture should not be taken as an indication that the image it reproduces was (or was not) intended for the space in question. Furthermore, comparisons of the detail of the altar and altarpiece in Gheringh's picture and the same motifs in Verhaert's drawing indicate that Verhaert made certain alterations, not all of which are satisfying. In some cases these have been corrected in the reconstructions so that they are more consistent with Gheringh's depiction. Also, based on the dimensions of the extant angel cutout (Institute of Art, Flint, Mich.) compared with those depicted to either side of the gable at the

top of the frame of The Raising of the Cross (see Martin, "The Angel from Rubens's Raising of the Cross" [as in n. 25], 141-46), it appears that Gheringh's angels (and consequently Verhaert's) are too large. That the cutout measures 80 1/2 by 57 in. (204.5 by 144.8 cm), and the center panel of The Raising of the Cross 181 1/8 by 133 7/8 in. (460 by 340 cm), means that the height of the angels should be somewhat less than half that of the triptych's panel(s); this correction is reflected in the photographic reconstructions. Finally, although the depiction of God in the opening in the upper gable appears both

disconcertingly large as well as strangely inattentive to the scene in the open triptych just below, it is the image initially proposed by Martin, a solution that has been generally accepted, but which may in the end turn out to be incorrect.

1. See Baudouin, 1972; Glen, 18-22; Martin, 37-52; Hans Vlieghe, De SchilderRubens (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1977), 19-21; Christopher White, Peter Paul Rubens (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 53-61. A. Monballieu, "P. P. Rubens en het 'Nachtmaal' voor Sint-Winnoxbergen (1611), een niet

uitgevoerd schilderij van de meester," Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1965): 196, cites a passage from a letter of 1611 in which several of these works are mentioned.

2. The monumental scale and iconographic complexity of the project suggests Rubens's involvement as early as the beginning of 1609; see Martin, 39, and Frans Baudouin, Rubens's "Raising of the Cross" in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp (Antwerp: Openbaar Kunstbezit in Vlaanderen, 1992), 6. Differences between the center panel of the original triptych for St. Walburgis (Fig. 6) and the first version of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (as in the

engraving in Fig. 11) suggest that the center panel must have already been in progress when the initial program for the high altar of St. Walburgis was abandoned.

3. Rooses, vol. 2 (1888), 196-99; Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 73-78; Baudouin, 1972, 54, 57. See also Leo Wuyts, "De 'Disputa' van P. P. Rubens, St- Pauluskerk," in Sint-Paulus-Info: Tijdschrift van de Sint-Pauluskerk (Antwerp: Sint-Pauluskerk, n.d.), 63-65; I would like to thank Mr. Wuyts for his gracious and thoughtful response to my questions about the iconography of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament in his letter of Sept. 16, 1996.

4. For the most recent overview, see Baudouin, 1992. See also Rooses, vol. 2, 68-83; and Martin, 37-52, 55-56. For other works on The Raising of the Cross, see n. 7 below.




5. For recent summaries of these issues, see Peter C. Sutton, "The Spanish Netherlands in the Age of Rubens," in The Age ofRubens, ed. Peter C. Sutton et al. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1993), 106-30; and Baudouin, 1972. For overviews of the campaigns to restore the Church in the Spanish Netherlands, see E. de Moreau, "Het Katholiek Herstel in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden," in

Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 12 vols. (Utrecht: W. de Haan, 1949-58), vol. 6, 307-35; and idem, L'Eglise des Pays-Bas, 1559-1633, vol. 5 of Histoire de

l'Eglise en Belgique, ed. J. A. van Houtte et al. (Brussels: L'Edition Universelle, 1952); L6opold Willaert, "Kerkelijke Toestanden in Het Zuiden," in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 7, 432-52; and those sources cited in n. 9 below.

6. See Baudouin, 1972; Martin; Glen; Freedberg. I would like to thank Professor Freedberg for generously sharing information on the history and

physical condition of The Raising of the Cross prior to the publication (1992) of the restoration report (cited in n. 7 below).

7. Studies of The Raising of the Cross published after the completion of its recent restoration include Baudouin, 1992; Willem Aerts and Jos van den Nieuwenhuizen, "De geschiedenis van De kruisoprichting na de Franse Revolu- tie," in De kruisoprichting van Peter Paul Rubens, by Roger d'Hulst et al. (Brussels: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Bestuur Monumenten en

Landschappen, 1992), 99-124; Nicole Goetghebeur and Regine Guislain- Wittermann, "De restauratie door het Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpat- rimonium," in ibid., 147-83. The report of the restoration, L. Masschelein- Kleiner, ed., Peter Paul Rubens's Elevation of the Cross: Study, Examination and Treatment, special issue of Bulletin, Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium 24 (1992), includes additional material as well as edited or redrafted versions of the articles by Baudouin and Goetghebeur and Guislain-Wittermann cited above.

For another perspective on the altarpiece, see Ulrich Heinen, Rubens zwischen Predigt und Kunst: Der Hochaltar fiir die Walburgenkirche in Antwerpen (Weimar: Verlag und Datenbank ffir Geisteswissenschaften, 1996); see also the

perceptive review by Hans Vlieghe, 1997. As noted by Vlieghe (250), Heinen

proposes that the altarpiece's structure and didactic goal indicate that it

played a role comparable to that of a sermon. Although Heinen addresses The Raising of the Cross from a totally different perspective, his hypothesis is in many ways complementary to the argument about the evolution of the triptych outlined in this essay; in several instances his views, together with those of Vlieghe, provide new and useful insights that indirectly support my own claims.

8. Here I refer to the publication of additional volumes in the series Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard-these include Vlieghe's important survey of Rubens's depictions of saints;J. R.Judson and C. van de Velde, Book Illustrations and Title Pages, 2 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1978); Nora Poorter, The Eucharist Tapestries, 2 vols. (London: Phaidon, 1978); R.-A. d'Hulst, Rubens: The Old Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and John Rupert Martin, The Ceiling Paintingsfor the Jesuit Church in Antwerp (London: Phaidon, 1968)-as well as access to Burchard's original notes and other relevant materials. I would like to thank Nora de Poorter for allowing me to consult Burchard's original notes on the works under consideration in this essay.

9. Studies of Antwerp include those essays in W. Couvreur et al., Antwerpen in de XVIde eeuw (Antwerp: Antwerp Mercurius, Genootschap voor Antwerpse Geschiedenis, 1975), and idem, Antwerpen in de XVIIde eeuw (Antwerp: Antwerp Mercurius, Genootschap voor Antwerpse Geschiedenis, 1989), as well as the essays inJan van der Stock et al., Antwerp, Story of a Metropolis, 16th-1 7th Century (Ghent: Snoeck-Ducuja en Zoon, 1993). For studies of the Church in the city and diocese of Antwerp, see Alfons Thijs, Dejezuieten en het katholieke herstel te Antwerpen na 1585 (Antwerp: Stadsdienst, 1985); and idem, Van Geuzenstad tot katholiek bolwerk, maatschappelijke betekenis van de Kerk in contrareformatorisch Antwerpen (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990); Carlo de Clerq, "Kerkelijk Leven," in Couvreur et al., 1989, 27-68; Kristin De Raeymaecker, "Aspecten van de Contrareformatie te Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw," in ibid., 69-99; and esp. Het Godsdienstig Leven in de Landdekenij Antwerpen ies(1610-50) (Louvain: Belgisch Centrum voor Landelijke Geschiedenis/Centre Beilge d'Histoire Rurale, 1977); and W. Luyckx, "Het Godsdienstig Leven in de Landdekenij Antwerpen 1650-1750," 2 vols., diss., Katholieke Universiteit, Louvain, 1983. For the Spanish Netherlands more generally, see James Tracy, "With and Without the Counter-Reformation: The Catholic Church in the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, 1580-1650," Catholic Historical Review 71 (1985): 547-75. For another perspective, see Craig Harline, "Official Religion-- Popular Religion in Recent Historiography of the Catholic Reformation," Archive for Reformation History 81 (1990): 239-62; and Michel Cloet, "La religion populaire dans les Pays-Bas mridionaux au xviie siscle," and "La religion populaire dans les Pays-Bas mGridionaux au xviiie sicle," Revue du Nord 67 (1985): 923-54, and 68 (1986): 609-34.

10. Ludwig Burchard and R.-A. d'Hulst, Rubens Drawings, 2 vols. (Brussels: Arcade, 1963), vol. 1, 101, as "probably" by de Bisschop. It is not clear if the drawings represent independent depictions of the same triptych or if one is a copy of the other. That de Bisschop also made two copies of the Dresden copy of Hans Holbein's Madonna of Burgomeister Meyer that differed in size and quality may be significant; see Jan van Gelder, Jan de Bisschop (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), 14 n. 56, which had appeared earlier in Oud Holland 86 (1971). The attribution to de Bisschop is also tentatively accepted by Held, vol. 1, nos. 350 A and B, 482; and noted by Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 78.

11. For the Burchard drawing (Fig. 5) (730 by 480 mm), see Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 78-79, no. 56a, fig. 101; see also Burchard's references to the drawing in his notes, Rubenianum, The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, RO. 376, 448/1. For the drawing in the Albertina (inv. no. 15103, 363 by 265 mm), see Die Rubenszeichungen der Albertina: Zum 400 Geburtstag (Vienna: Albertina, 1977), 204; Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 78-79, no. 56a, fig. 103.

12. Ludwig Burchard, Skizzen des jungen Rubens, Sitzungsberichte der kunst- geschichtlichen Gesellschaft Berlin, exh. cat., Berlin, 1926-27, 2; and idem, Some Pictures from Dulwich Gallery, exh. cat., National Gallery, London, 1947, cat. no. 45; see also Burchard and d'Hulst (as in n. 10), vol. 1, 101. For Gustav Glfick on Burchard's opinions on the role of the Dulwich modelli in the program for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, see Glick, 382.

13. Based on the dimensions of the Dulwich panels (see n. 14 below), the modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament would have measured approximately 26 1/2 by 19 3/4 in. (65 by 50 cm). See Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, no. 78-79, 56a; and Glfick, 382.

14. The Dulwich panels measure 26 1/8 by 9 5/8 in. (66.5 by 25 cm; left wing, with Amandus and Walburgis) and 26 1/8 by 10 1/8 in. (66.5 by 25.8 cm; right wing, with Eligius and Catherine of Alexandria). See Peter Murray, Dulwich Picture Gallery: A Catalogue (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1980), 111-12.

15. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79. 16.Julius Held, "Artis Pictorae Amator," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 50 (1957):

53-84, reprinted in Rubens and His Circle: Studies by Julius S. Held, ed. Anne W. Lowenthal, David Rosand, andJohn WalshJr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 36-64; see also Baudouin, 1972, 54-59; Zirka Z. Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp, 1550-1700 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 49, 59, 78; and A.A.J. van Delen, "Cornelis van der Geest: Een groot figuur in de geschiedenis van Antwerpen," Antwerpen 5 (1959): 59-71.

17. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79. See also White (as in n. 1), 84, 86, who notes that although The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament was probably commissioned by the Sodality of the Holy Name ofJesus, it may have been paid for by van der Geest. Baudouin, 1972, 54, 56, questions whether the painting was paid for out of communal funds or if it was presented to the group; although he finds it "not irrelevant" that van der Geest had a close relationship with the confraternity, he warns that this does not necessarily mean that van der Geest provided funds for the work but, more likely, that he had some influence over which artist the group chose. For the Sodality of the Holy Name ofJesus (also called De Soeten Naem) in the Dominican Church, see M.-T. Claessens, "De broederschappen te Antwerpen van de 14de eeuw tot circa 1600," diss., Katholieke Universiteit, Louvain, 1969, 36. For additional information on the sodality's chapel, see Alois Janssens, "Soeten Naem en Venerabel," in Sint-Paulus-Info (Antwerp: Sint-Pauluskerk, n.d.), 304-5; and G. Dodson, De Kapel van het Heilig Sakrament of Venerabel Kapel (Antwerp: n.p., 1960).

18. Frans Baudouin, "Rubens's Social and Cultural Background," in Stil und Udberlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlands, Akten des 21. Internationalen Kongresses ffir Kunstgeschichte in Bonn, 1964, 3 vols. (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1967), vol. 3, 17. See also idem, 1972, 49-50, 57-61; idem, 1992, 53, 56; Filipczak (as in n. 16), 49, 59; Glen, 237; and White (as in n. 1), 84, 86. Van der Geest's probable involvement in the commission of The Raising of the Cross is also indicated by the subject of the altarpiece recorded in de Bisschop's drawings, as well as by the choice of a triptych format; for the latter point, see Vlieghe, review of Rubens zwischen Predigt und Kunst (as in n. 7), 252.

19. For the sale, see Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 179. The panels are not listed among the works purchased from van der Geest's collection by the Antwerp dealer Peeter Stevens; see Jan Briels, "Amator Pictoriae Artis: De Antwerpse Kunsthandelaar Peeter Stevens (1590-1668) en zijn Constkamer," Jaarboek, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1980): 139-226. See also the discussion in Held, vol. 1, 481-82, nos. 350 A and B, pl. 345; and Burchard, 1947 (as in n. 12), no. 45.

20. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79. 21. Burchard and d'Hulst (as in n. 10), vol. 1, 101, "It is possible that all

three works were painted at about the same time and were together in one frame whenJan de Bisschop copied them." Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79, proposes that the panels were combined by van der Geest, while Burchard thought they had been assembled by a later owner or dealer; for his remarks, see Rubenianum, The Real Presence, RO. 376, 448/1.

22. Held, vol. 1, 482, "De Bisschop combined them (the Dulwich modell) with a drawing after a lost modello for The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament in St. Paul's in Antwerp."

23. See Michael JaffW , Rubens and Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 23, for comparisons of The Disput5 and The Real Presence; see alsoJaff1's "Rubens and Raphael," in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt on His 60th Birthday (London: Phaidon, 1967), 101. A similar point is made by Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 75; and by Kerry Downs, Rubens (London: Phaidon, 1980), 102. AlthoughJaffr, in Rubens and Italy, emphasizes that Rubens's drawing (Royal Library, Turin) after the central group of figures located in the upper tier of The Disputd was made from the fresco, that Rubens had access to a comprehensive drawing or engraving is reflected in the number and character of changes he introduced in the final version of The Real Presence. For Cornelis Cort's engraving (ca. 1575), which is based on a drawing by Federico Zuccaro after Raphael's fresco, and which was probably the model for The Real Presence, see F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700, 15 vols. (Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1949), vol. 5, 52, no. 112.




24. For this view, see Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 75; Downs (as in n. 23), 102. 25. Anton Gheringh's rendition of the gable in his view of the interior of St.

Walburgis (Fig. 4) appears to contain an image of God similar to that of Rubens's God the Father a lost work known today by Ignace Joseph van den

Berghe's engraving; see John Rupert Martin, "The Angel from Rubens's

Raising of the Cross," in Rubens and His World: Bijdragen, Etudes, Studies, Beitrdge; Opgedragen aan Prof Dr Ir R.-A. d'Hulst (Antwerp: Het Gulden Cabinet, 1985), fig. 2; see also Rooses, vol. 2, 74-75. For Gheringh's picture following its recent restoration, see Pieter Eyskens, "Het Interieur van de Sint-Walburgiskerk door Anthon Gunther Gheringh," in Sint-Paulus-Info (Antwerp: Sint-Pauluskerk, n.d.) , 1142-44.

26. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 74. The same figure also appears in an oil sketch by Rubens, entitled Study of Two Heads, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; see Walter Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols. (NewYork: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984), vol. 1, 168-72, and vol.

2, pl. 64. AsJudson and van de Velde (as in n. 8) have observed (vol. 1, 100, under no. 9, cited in Liedtke, 169), Rubens introduced both of the heads in this sketch in the Ascension of Christ, an illustration for the Missale Romanum. Some notes on the sketch in the museum's archives have characterized the head as that of an Old Testament prophet; however, there has been no

previous claim that he represents Moses. I would like to thank Dr. Liedtke for

allowing me to consult these materials. 27. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 76, 78; Rooses, vol. 2, 198. As will be explained

below, the panel for the Dominican Church was cut down, extended, and

repainted on at least two occasions, in each case to fit the aperture of a new frame.

28. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 77. 29. While the Church Fathers and saints date from the second half of the

patristic period, the three Antwerp saints (Amandus, Eligius, and Walburgis) are generally associated with the Merovingian; see L. van der Essen, Le sitcle des saints (625-739): Etude sur les origines de la Belgique Chritienne (Brussels: Le Renaissance du Livre, 1948); F. de Graaff, "De Heiligheidsopvatting in de

periode der Merovingers," Ons Geestelijk Erfl15 (1941): 163-227; and P.FX. de Ram, Hagiographie nationale: Vies des saints et les personnes d'une iminente piiti qui ont vecu dans les anciennes provinces belges, 2 vols. (Brussels: M. Hayez, 1864, 1866). For the role of indigenous saints in the earliest history of Flanders, see

L.J.M. Philippen, "De hagiographie en de vroegste Antwerpsche Geschiede- nis," Koninklijke Oudheidhuindige Kring van Antwerpen 19 (1943): 108-18.

30. This is particularly indicated in the literature on indigenous saints in the

Spanish Netherlands; see Knipping, "Indigenous Saints in the Catholic Polemics," vol. 2, 285-94. Two important works on these figures areJohannes Molanus's Indiculus Sanctorum Belgii (Antwerp, 1583) and Natales Sanctorum

Belgii, et corundem chronica recapitulatio (Louvain, 1595). Rubens's depictions of the Antwerp saints may draw even more on Heribert Rosweydus's Fasti sanctorum quorum Vitae in Belgicis bibliothecis manuscriptae (Antwerp, 1607), which was, in turn, the basis for the Generale Legende der Heylighen (Antwerp, 1619), a work that Rosweydus coauthored with Petrus Ribandineira, which became the basis for the hagiographic research of the Bollandists in the Low Countries; see P. Peeters, L'oeuvre des Bollandistes, Acad4mie Royale de

Belgique: Classe des lettres; M6moires, 2d ser., vol. 39 (Brussels: Palais des Academies, 1942).

31. Perhaps the most prominent example for the Spanish Netherlands is Saint Norbert's confrontation of the heretic Tanchelm during the early 12th

century; see Knipping, vol. 1, 57, 170, and vol. 2, 246, 303. This event, which is

depicted in Rubens's Saint Norbert Overcoming Tanchelm (private collection), presents yet another indication of local interest in indigenous saints in

Flanders during the early 17th century; see Sutton (as in n. 5), 285-87, no. 25. See also Cynthia Lawrence, "Het Waltmann Memoriaal: Een verloren werk uit de Sint-Michielsabdij van Antwerpen," Antwerpia (1987): 145-52; and Barbara

Haeger, "Rubens's Adoration of the Magi and the Program for the High Altar of St. Michael's Abbey in Antwerp," Simiolus 25 (1997): 45-71, esp. 60-65.

32. This point is raised, particularly with regard to the Church Fathers,

throughout Knipping; see in particular "The Fathers of the Church," vol. 2, 373-76. The writings of the Church Fathers are frequently cited in early 17th-century tracts defending Transubstantiation; one of the most important is Louis Richeome's Tableaux sacrts desfigures mysteriques du tris-auguste sacrifice et sacrement de l'Euchariste (Paris: Chez L. Sonnius, 1601), originally dedicated to Henri IV and Marie de Medicis, which was reissued in 1609 and 1614. See also n. 68 below for the reference to Ambrose's discussion of Old Testament

prototypes for Transubstantiation. Of particular relevance for this paper are the annotated transcripts of the Antwerp debate on Transubstantiation, which indicate that the works of the Church Fathers were frequently cited. For that of the Protestant participant, see Samuel Lansbergen, Ghesprec, over de Leere, vande Transubstantiatie: onlanx ghehouden binnen Antwerpen, tusschen Franciscum Lansber- gium, Dienaer der Ghemeynte Christi binnen Rotterdam, ende Patrem Gauda, Priester derghenaemder SocieteytJesu (Rotterdam:Jan van Waesberghe, 1609); for that of the Jesuit participant, see Joannes van Gouda, Andwoorde loannis de Gouda Priester der Societeyt Jesu op de Medesprake aengaende de Transsubstantiatie met Francisco ende Samuele Lansbergen Ministers tot Rotterdam (Antwerp: Joachim Trognesius, 1609).

33. T. G. Corbett, "The Cult of Lipsius: A Leading Source of Early Modern Spanish Statecraft," Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (1975): 139-52; and H. J. Elias, "De Staat en de Katholieke Restauratie," in Kerk en Staat in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden onder de Regeering der Aartshertogen Albrecht en Isabella (1598-1621)

(Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1931), 47-60; and idem, "L'Eglise et l'Etat: Theories et controvers6s dans les Pays-Bas Catholiques au d6but du XVIIe siecle," Revue

Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 5 (1926): 453-69,905-32. 34. See Sutton (as in n. 5), 109-11, 116-22; and Elias, 1931 (as in n. 33). 35. For the history of Protestant and Catholic regimes in Antwerp during

the second half of the 16th century, see Guido Marnef, Antwerp in the Age of Reformation: Underground Protestantism in a Commercial Metropolis, 1550-1577

(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Thijs, 1990 (as in n. 9). Raeymaecker, 1977 (as in n. 9), 170-84, includes a valuable survey of heretical attitudes and practices in the rural parishes of Antwerp. For Antwerp as the site of Norbert's confrontation with Tanchelm, see n. 31 above.

36. This issue was discussed in Cynthia Lawrence, "Rubens's Antwerp Saints:

History, Heresy and Patriotic Hagiography," paper presented at the annual

meeting of the College Art Association, San Antonio,Jan. 25-28, 1995. 37. For an overview of these so-called conf&ences de controversi, see

J. Andriessen, DeJezuieten en het samenhorigheidsbesef der Nederlanden, 1585-1648

(Antwerp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1957), 156-58; and Alfred Poncelet, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jisus dans les anciennes Pays-Bas, 2 vols. (Brussels: M. Lamertin, 1927-28), vol. 2, 381. Along with Henri Denys, FranCois Coster, and Maximilian van Habbeke, Johannes van Gouda (see n. 39 below), was considered one of the most brilliant controversistes.

38. The participants in the Antwerp debate are briefly noted by Knipping, vol. 2, 301, 307; see also P. Polman, O.F.M., "De Heilige Eucharistie in de Nederlandse Polemiek," Studia Catholica 23 (1948): 239-54; Andriessen (as in n. 37), 156-58; Poncelet (as in n. 37), vol. 2, 381. The Antwerp debate was the focus of Cynthia Lawrence, "Disputing Real Presence: The Iconography of Transubstantiation in Rubens's Antwerp Altarpieces," paper presented at the conference "Crucibles of Conflict: Religious Confrontation and Compromise in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe," Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State University, Mar. 1996. This issue was addressed more recently in idem, "Confronting Heresy in Post-Tridentine

Antwerp: Argumentation and Conciliation as Opposing Strategies in Rubens's Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament (1610)," paper presented at the Sixteenth

Century Studies Conference, Toronto, Oct. 25, 1998. 39. See LesJesuites belges, 1542-1992: 450 ans de Compagnie de fsus dans les

provinces belgiques (Brussels: AESM, 1992), 69. Johannes van Gouda (1571- 1630), a persuasive preacher and skilled polemicist, had devoted his career to the opposition of heresy, especially challenges to Transubstantiation. He is

depicted in a portrait by Paulus Moreelse (1628, private collection), which refers to his endeavors in this area. For a list of Gouda's publications, see A. de Backer, Bibliothtque de la Compagnie deftsus, 12 vols. (Brussels: O. Schepens, 1890-1932), vol. 3, 1631-1635 (1892); and Leopold Polgar, Bibliography of the

History of the Society of Jesus (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1967). For Gouda's biography, see Poncelet (as in n. 37), vol. 2, 207, 294-96, 379-81, 506, 510 (sermons). Cornelius a Lapide (1567-1637), whose given name was Cornelis Cornelissen Vandensteen, served as chair of Scripture and was

professor of Hebrew at the University of Louvain before being called to Rome in 1617. Lapide was the author of a prodigious number of commentaries

(covering the entire Bible, with the exception of Job and Psalms); his most famous work, Commentaria in omnes Divi Pauli Epistolas (Antwerp, 1614) went

through eleven of its eighty editions before his death. For Lapide's publications, see Poncelet, vol. 2, 207, 294-96; see also "Cornelius a Lapide," in The

Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 348; and T. T. Taheny, "Lapide, Cornelius A," in The New Catholic

Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol. 8, 382. 40. Biographies of the Lansbergens appear in J. P. de Bie et al., Biographisch

Woordenboek van Protestantsche Godgeleerden in Nederland, vol. 3 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1943), 555-60 (Franciscus) and 566-73 (Samuel), with extensive bibliography. Samuel and his wife, Maria Pietersdr de Leest, appear in pendant portraits by Bartholomeus van der Helst, signed and dated 1646

(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). 41. See n. 32 above. 42. For the rebuttals published by Gouda, see Backer (as in n. 39); for those

published by Lansbergen, see Bie et al. (as in n. 40), 572-73. 43. While Burchard does not explicitly make this claim, it is implicit in his

notes, in several of his later published comments, and in the published works of those scholars with whom he evidently shared his impressions. See Held, vol. 1, 482, who notes that Burchard, the first to identify the three panels depicted in the drawings, "concluded that the Dulwich sketches were originally destined for the altar in St. Paul's; he later withdrew this theory which in the meantime had been adopted by several scholars (e.g., Grossmann and Glfick)." For Fritz Grossmann's comments, see "Rubens et Van Dyck a la Dulwich Gallery," Les Arts Plastiques 2 (1948): 48: "De plus, ce dernier a souligne la probabilite que l'esquisse 6tait destin6e, a l'origine, a la

Disputr des

Pires de l'Eglise de l'eglise St. Paul * Anvers, et que la composition a 6t6 utilisee, avec certains changements, pour les volets exterieurs du retable de la Croix lorsque la Disputd fut execut&e comme un tableau d'autel sans volets" (In addition, the latter underscores the likelihood that the sketch was intended, from the beginning, for the Disputation of the Church Fathers in the church of St. Paul in Antwerp, and that the composition was used, with some changes, for the exterior panels of the wings of the Cross when the Disputa was executed as a portico altar without wings). See Glfick, 382: "Dort der Hinweis, dass die Doppelskizze in Dulwich anscheinend als modello fior Flfigel der 'Disputa der Kirchenviter' gemalt war. Die 'Disputa' (Antwerpen, St. Paulskirche) wurde




jedoch als Einzelbild, ohne Fliigel, ausgeffihrt, woraufhin Rubens die fiberzah- lig gewordene Skizze-mit entsprechenden Anderungen-ffir die Aussenseite der 'Kreuzaufrichtung' verwertet hat" (There the reference, that the double sketch in Dulwich was apparently painted as a modello for wings of the 'Disputa of the Church Fathers.' The 'Disputa' (Antwerp, St. Paul) was, however, executed as a single painting, without wings, whereupon Rubens utilized the leftover sketch, with appropriate changes, for the exterior of The Raising of the Cross).

44. Rubenianum, The RealPresence, RO. 376, 448/1: "Die Zeichnung gibt ein angebliches Triptychon wieder, was mich zu falschen Schlussfolgerungen geffihrt hat.... Es spricht vieles, ja alles daffir, dass diese Flfigel und dieses Mittelstfick-modello nie zusammengeh6rt haben und nur bei einem Sammler beisammen waren

... ." (The drawing reproduces an alleged triptych, which

has led me to the wrong conclusions. ... Much, indeed everything, speaks for the fact that these wings and this centerpiece modello neverbelonged together and [were] onlyjoined at a dealer's ... .). The italicized words were also given similar emphasis in Burchard's handwritten notes.

45. Rubenianum, The Real Presence, RO. 376, 448/1: "Das Altarbild der 'Disputa' geplangte nicht als Triptychon zur Ausfiihrung, sondern als Altar- blatt ohne Flfigel" (the altar painting of the Disputd was carried out not as a triptych, but as an altarpiece without wings). This point is picked up in Glfick, 382, and Grossmann (as in n. 43), 48.

46. Rubenianum, The Real Presence, RO. 376, 448/1: "Der Haupteinwand: der eine Bischof (auf dem rechten Flfigel) ist Eligius, der durch einen Hammer gekennzeichnet ist. Eligius hat es mit der Burcht-Kirche zu tun, nichts aber mit den Dominicanern. Ebenso Walburga, auf dem linken Flfigel ist Amandus ebendort" (The main objection: one of the bishops [the one on the right wing] is Eligius, who is identified by a hammer. Eligius is connected with the Burchtkerk, but has nothing to do with the Dominicans. Likewise, Walburgis, on the left wing, is Amandus in the very same place). In his notes Burchard reluctantly concluded that Rooses, vol. 2, 78-79, had been right after all-the Dulwich modelli were studies for the exterior of the wings on The Raising of the Cross and had nothing to do with the altarpiece in St. Paul; see Burchard's comments, RO. 376, 448/1. For additional commentary on Burchard's views, see Grossmann (as in n. 43), 48; and Glfick, 382. Rooses, vol. 2, 196, was evidently the first to comment on the stylistic similarity between the foreground figures in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and the saints painted on the reverse of the wings in TheRaising ofthe Cross. The elongation of the figures in these works corresponds with those in Rubens's first program for the Chiesa Nuova (1607-8) and, as observed in Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 76, with those in his Adoration of the Magi (Prado, Madrid) which was commissioned for the Antwerp Town Hall in 1609 (and which is dated by Vlieghe 1609-10).

47. Burchard gives no indication of where he thought the altarpiece would have been mounted in the Dominican Church; he may not have realized that the choir (and thus the high altar) was not completed until 1639, a point that argues against the triptych recorded by de Bisschop having been designed for this location. The introduction in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament of that group of figures, discussed below, who are associated with the Feast of Corpus Christi, an observance particularly associated with the Dominicans, made the work even more appropriate for its new setting; see nn. 81, 82 below.

48. In my monograph on The Raising of the Cross, now in progress, I explore the possibility that Rubens's continued interest in indigenous medieval Flemish saints, together with previously unexplored indications of his curiosity about the history and architecture of Antwerp's earliest churches, may be traced to his firsthand knowledge of Cardinal Cesare Baronio's attempts around 1600 to conserve and revive Rome's early Christian heritage. For an overview of one of Baronio's several projects, see Alexandra Herz, "Cardinal Cesare Baronio's Restoration of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and S. Cesareo de'Appia," Art Bulletin 70 (1988): 590-620.

15thcentury fabrication, a fact that may not have been generally known in the early 17th century; see M. Coens, "Le sejour l.gendaire i Anvers de Ste Walburga," Analecta Bolandiana 80 (1962): 345-60; see also Cyril van Stroo, "De iconografie van de Heilige Walburga in Vlaanderen," Jaarboek, Koninkijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1985): 189-248.

50. See Frans Baudouin, "Vier afbeeldingen van het interieur der verd- wenen Sint-Walburgiskerk te Antwerpen," Bulletin van de Koninklhjke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belgie 34-37 (1985-88): 187, who cites P. Gcnard, Verzame- ling der graf- en gedenkschriften van de Provincie Antwerpen, 4 vols. (Antwerp: J. E. Buschmann, 1856-1931), vol. 2, xix, regarding the restoration of the crypt. By the 18th century, Walburgis's crypt had been relocated beneath the former

tower of the Burchtkerk (no. lOB in Fig. 13 marks the stairs leading down to the crypt, with no. 10A marking the Chapel of St. Walburgis, which was built directly above it); for the description of the crypt and chapel, see Jacobus de Wit, De Kerken van Antwerpen, reprinted with notes byJ. de Bosschere, in Uitgave der Antwerpse Bibliophilen 25 (1910): 139, with the ground plan cited above

reproduced in pl. XV. An engraved view of the choir after G. Bouttaets, which

dates from the renovation of 1676 (Vleeshuis, Antwerp), shows a group of fashionably dressed figures entering the crypt. For histories of the crypt(s), see F H. Mertens, De kroft van Ste. Walburgis te Antwerpen (Antwerp: J.-E. Busch- mann, 1864); and M. van Hoeck, Over de oude Ste. Walburgiskerk op de Burcht voor

de Nieuwe Ste. Walburgiskerk in the Volkstraat (Mechelen: n.p., 1937), 21. 51. See D. Mudzaert, Generale Kerckelycke Historie (Antwerp, 1624), 64.

52. For the linkage of Walburgis and Catherine, see van Stroo (as in n. 49), 195. Like Walburgis, who is depicted as putting down a storm at sea in a

predella panel (Fig. 26; it appears to the left of the tabernacle in Fig. 25), Catherine (Fig. 27) was venerated in Antwerp as the patron of sailors; thus, she

appears to have been doubly linked with Walburgis in local iconographic traditions.

53. See de Wit (as in n. 50), 138. 54. See J. C. Diercxsens, Antwerpia Christo Nascens et Crescens seu acta Eclesiam

Antwerpiensem ejusque Apostolos (Antwerp, 1775), 82; for van der Geest's will, see

Antwerp, Stadsarchief, K274, copy of a protocol by FranCois Ketgen den Ouden, 1638; this document is referred to in Genard (as in n. 50), vol. 2, cxliii (Feb. 10, 1638).

55. See Held (as in n. 16), 36-38. 56. The picture is mentioned in de Wit (as in n. 50), 138;J. P. Goetschalckx,

Geschiedenis van het Bisdom Antwerpen, 2 vols. (Eekeren: De Zon, 1915), vol. 1, 201; see also idem, "Naamlijster der pastoors van de Belgische parochien eertijds deelmakende van't Bisdom Antwerpen," Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het al oude Hertogdom Brabant (1908): 50; Genard (as in n. 50), vol. 2, lxx. De Vos's Last Supperwas evidently rehung near the baptismal font (no. 19 in

Fig. 13) when a scene of Christ and the Apostles at Emmaus by Jan Erasmus

Quellien (1634-1715) was placed above the altar of the Holy Sacrament in 1680.

57. A partial view of the choir of St. Walburgis, which appears in Ambrosius Francken's Saint Eligius Preaching in Antwerp (1588, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp), may be the only record of how the choir appeared in this period. Behind a gate that closed off the choir is a picture (subject unknown); just to the right is what appears to be an altar, which was surmounted by a sculpture of an unidentified figure of a bishop (Saint Eligius?) and behind which was a square-format painting (whose subject cannot be determined).

58. Genard (as in n. 50), vol. 2, lxx. 59. See Eyskens (as in n. 25). The work is signed and dated "165-" on the

left column, and also dated "1661" on the left and right ambos; see Baudouin (as in n. 50), 190 (who accepts a date of 1661). The picture has recently been dated 1664 in Masschelein-Kleiner (as in n. 7), 19.

60. That Christ was intended to be represented by the Host reserved in the monstrance has been noted by Burchard, Rubenianum, The Real Presence, RO. 376, 448/1; and by Downs (as in n. 23), 102. For Christ's absence in The Triumph of the Eucharist series, see Charles Scribner III, The Triumph of the Eucharist: Tapestries Designed by Rubens (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1982), 52.

61. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 75; the same title was also used by Rooses, vol. 1, 138. Burchard (Rubenianum, The RealPresence, RO. 376, 448) calls the work by two different names-the Disputd of the Church Fathers and the Institution of the Feast of Corpus Domini; Held, vol. 1, 642, no. 34A, refers to it as the "so-called" Disputation of the Church Fathers, "now interpreted as The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament."

62. According to Martin, 43, there are no preparatory drawings or sketches for the figure of God in the upper portion of the frame in St. Walburgis.

63. See Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79; Rooses, vol. 2, 74-75, nos. 280-82, as cited by Vlieghe. Although Vlieghe does not specifically refer to a frame, he notes that God is not represented in the upper part of the picture because "it was intended to represent him separately in a painting or sculpture above the

principal work." 64. The source for this passage, and for all other biblical citations in this

essay, is The Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, Revised Standard Version, ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 114 (Exod. 34:29-34).

65. Cornelius a Lapide, R. P Cornelii a Lapide e SocietateJesu Commentaria in Vetus et Novum Testamentum, 11 vols. in 10 (Venice: Ex Topographica Balleoni- ana, 1761), vol. 1, Commentaria in Pentateuchum Mosis, 273-74 (commentary on Exod. 4:1-4). For Lapide's discussion of Moses' shining face, see 581-82 (the synopsis on Exod. 34:29-35); 586 (the gloss on the origin of Moses' "horns," as referred to in the references to rays of light in 34:35); 587 (the gloss on 34:30-35). See also Ruth Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 6-7; and Julian Morgenstern, "Moses with the Shining Face," Hebrew Union College Annual 1 (1925): 1-27.

66. For the title page, see Judson and van de Velde (as in n. 8), vol. 1, 173-78, nos. 36 and 36a, figs. 118 (the engraving, 1616) and 119 (Rubens's preparatory drawing, undated). See also the entry by Deborah-Irene Coy in Rubens and the Book: Title Pages by Peter Paul Rubens, exh. cat., Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., 1977, 103-4, no. 25.

67. It is also similar to the rapt expression and glowing countenance of the figure in Rubens's oil sketch in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; see n. 26 above.

68. Ambrose, On the Mysteries, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 10, St. Ambrose, Selected Works and Letters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), 324, 351.

69. Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 129-31. See also de Poorter, "The Prefigurations" (as in n. 8), pt. 2, vol. 1, 191-97; Scribner (as in n. 60), 31-53; Martin (as in n. 8), 195-201; and d'Hulst (as in n. 8), 19-22. See also Michael




Kauffmann, "Typology-The Old Testament Regarded as a Forerunner of the New," one of the wall labels in a temporary display entitled Rubens and the Bible, curated by Helen Braham, that accompanied an exhibition of eight works by Rubens in the Courtauld Institute Galleries (Somerset House), London, between 1990 and 1993. I am grateful to Miss Braham for allowing me to consult these materials as well as her own notes on the paintings that were included in the exhibition.

70. See, for example, Richeome's discussion of this motif in "De la

toute-puissance de Dieu en la transsubstantiation" (as in n. 32), 183-84. 71. See Gouda (as in n. 32), 24, 29. 72. For his discussion of the transformation of Moses' rod, see Lapide (as in

n. 65), 274 (Exod. 4:3-4). 73. For the Antwerp Synod's decree, see Baudouin, 1992, 60; and Freed-

berg, 139 n. 72. For the text of the decree, see P.F.X. De Ram and J. van de Velde, Nova et absoluta collectio synodorum episcopatus Antverpiensis, Synodicon belgicum sive acta omnium ecclesiarum belgii a celebrato concilio tridentino

usque ad concordatum anni 1801, vol. 3 (Louvain: Excudebant Vanlinthout et

Socii, Universitatis Typographi, 1858). For the issue of what subjects the synod deemed appropriate, see Titulus XIV, "De Imaginibus," Caput 1, 142. The four books to which the passage refers are Molanus's De historia ss. imaginum et

picturarum pro vero earum usu contra abusus libri IV Auctore loanne Molano regio theologo & ciue Louanensi (Louvain, 1594).

A similar point had been made earlier in the proceedings of the Third Provincial Synod of Mechelen (June 26-July 20, 1607): see Titulus XIV, "De

Imaginibus et Sanctorum Reliquiis," Caput 1; see De Ram and van de Velde, vol. 1, Nova et absoluta collectio synodorum tam provincialium quam dioecesanarum

archiepiscopatus Mechliniensis (Mechelen: n.p., 1828-29), 387. 74. This point is made in De Ram and van de Velde (as in n. 73), vol. 3,

Titulus XIV, "De Imaginibus," Caput 2, 142, literally: "we will seriously punish anyone who falsely represents the images or who makes fun of them." See

Freedberg, 139, who recalls the well-known story of how Rubens had been

required to move the figure of Saint Christopher, the patron of the Antwerp Kloveniers, from the face to the reverse of The Descentfrom the Cross (1611-14, Antwerp Cathedral), the guild's new altarpiece. See also Nicole Verhaegen, "L'iconographie de la Descente de Croix de Rubens," Bulletin de lInstitut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique 5 (1962): 17-26; this article also appears in an English-language translation in Martin, 123-30, where the iconography of The Descent is discussed on pages 123-24.

75. Freedberg, 139. 76. Ibid., 139-40. 77. Ibid., 140; this would seem to reflectJ.FM. Michel's observation that the

subject of The Raising of the Cross was chosen by the priest and church wardens; see Michel, Histoire de la vie de P-P Rubens, Chevalier & Seigneur de Steen (Brussels, 1771), as cited in Martin, 66.

78. Rubenianum, The Real Presence, RO. 376, 448/1. 79. Monballieu (as in n. 1), 196; also cited by Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 76. 80. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 76; see also n. 17 above. 81. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 74, identifies the two seated figures as Thomas

Aquinas, the author of the service and hymns for the feast, and Urban IV, who originally hailed from Lidge and who authorized the feast in a bull (Transituris de hoc mundo) in 1264; see Charles M. A. Caspers, De Eucharistische Vroomheid en het feest van Sacramentsdag in de Nederlanden tijdens de late middeleeuwen, Miscellanea Neerlandica, vol. 5 (Louvain: Peeters, 1992), 42-49; and Rubin (as in n. 69), chap. 3, esp. 176-81. A nun wearing a white veil and wimple stands behind these figures, her brightly lit face looking out toward the viewer with an engaging smile; while she has never been identified (or even noted, for that matter), I believe that she represents either SaintJuliana of Liege (also known as Juliana of Cornillon), a Premonstratensian nun whose visions provided the initial impulse for the invention of the feast, or Eve of St. Martin, a friend of Juliana's who after the latter's death continued to promote the installation of the feast, most significantly in her correspondence with Urban IV. For the life ofJuliana, see E. Denis, La vraie histoire de SainteJuleDienne de ige et 'institution de la ite-Dieu (Paris: Blond, 1935); Aubert-Tillo van Biervliet,

"HeiligeJuliana van Cornillon," in Heiligen uit e eede Nederlanden (Bruges: Tabor, 1986), 90-91; Rubin, 169-71; and Caspers, 42-55. The two anonymous male figures who stand next to the nun may depict any of several historical figures who supportedJuliana and Eve's endeavors to obtain the Church's acceptance of the feast.

82. For the origins of Corpus Christi (also called F~te-Dieu), see E. Dumoutet, Le Christ selon la chair et la vie liturgique aux

Moyen Age (Paris: n.p., 1932); and idem, Corpus Domini: Aux sources de la piiti mtzdi~vale (Paris: n.p., 1942); Sarah Beckwith, Christ's Body: Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings (London: Routledge, 1993); Rubin (as in n. 69), chap. 3; and Caspers (as in n. 81), 35-42. For the important association of the feast with the bishopric of Liege, see G. Simenon, "Les origines liigeoises de la F~te-Dieu," in Studia Eucharistica; DCC; anni a condito sanctissimi corpus Christi: 1246-1946

(Antwerp: De Zon, 1946), 1-9;Jean Cottiaux, L'office litgeoise de la Fte-Dieu: Sa valeur et son destin (Louvain: Peeters, 1963); and Caspers, chap. 1.

83. See Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79. 84. See Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 76-77, who discusses those changes in the

format of the panel executed prior to 1643 (the date of Snyers's engraving) and those dating from the introduction of a new frame in 1680.

85. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79.

86. Why Rubens did not change Moses' expression at the same time that he introduced the figure of God remains an unanswered question. It may have been thought that Moses, like some of the other figures in the panel, appears to be looking up at the books held by the putti at the top of the picture. It is ironic that Moses' upward gaze makes more sense (compositionally, if not

iconographically) in the context of the current frame (ca. 1654-58), where the gable contains a figure of the Infant Christ.

87. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 77. This project was undertaken to make the altar of the Holy Sacrament correspond to the altar of the Rosary in the left

transept. I would like to thank Dr. Liliane Masschelein-Kleiner for providing me with information relating to the most recent restoration of The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament.

88. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 77. 89. Baudouin (as in n. 2), 14. Despite claims to the contrary, I have

identified over thirty depictions of The Raising of the Cross that date before the end of the 16th century. Some of these are included in Patricia Rose, "The

Iconography of The Raising of the Cross," Print Review 5 (1976): 131-41 (which cites a number of German works from the end of the 15th century and the

beginning of the 16th). The Index of Christian Art (Princeton University) includes several examples, executed in diverse media, dating from the 12th

through the 15th centuries. 90. For a discussion of earlier Netherlandish examples of this theme, see

Masschelein-Kleiner (as in n. 7), 20-21, who notes the inclusion of the motif of the Raising of the Cross in the Stein Triptych (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore), a work by Simon Bening dating from the mid-16th century, which includes

sixty-four scenes from the life of Christ; see Sixten Ringbom, Icon to Narrative: The Rise of the Dramatic Close-up in Fifteenth Century Devotional Painting (Abo, Finland: Abo Akademi, 1965), 205-9, fig. 195. The Raising of the Cross

appears in the background of Maerten van Heemskerck's Suffering Christ, ca. 1545-50, Herenthals, Sint-Waltrudiskerk; and in Pieter Aertsen's Carrying of the Cross, ca. 1550, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. The same motif appears in scenes of the Carrying of the Cross or the Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, which appear to be based on works by his father; see, for example, those depictions of Calvary in Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten and Philadelphia Museum of Art; see also Ursula Hirting, "Fragen an eine 'Kreuzerrichtung'-mit dem heiligen Bavo? Bemerkungen zu einer verlorenen 'Cryssingh Cristy' von Pieter Brueghel I," Niederdeutsche Beitrdge zur Kunstgeschichte 30 (1991): 97-118. The Raising of the Cross also

appears in a series of scenes from the Passion in the frame of Frans Francken the Elder's Crucifixion, ca. 1604 (Antwerp Cathedral). Rubens's use of the engravings in Nadal is discussed by David Freedberg in The Life of Christ after the Passion, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 139, 191, 195.

91. Baudouin (as in n. 2), 14-15; idem, 1992, 88. TheElevation of the Cross also appears in prints by Hans Baldung Grien (1507); see Martin Warnke, PeterPaul Rubens: Life and Work (Woodbury, N.Y.: Barrons, 1980), 41, fig. 27. It also appears in prints by Hans Wechtlin (1508) and Albrecht Altdorfer (1513) and in a number of drawings by 16th-century German masters.

92. In addition to the triptych for St. Walburgis and a panel for the Chapel of St. Helena in Rome, Rubens also executed a scene of the Raising of the Cross for the ceiling of the Antwerp Jesuit Church; see Martin (as in n. 8), 87-91, no. 10. The many potential sources for these works will be discussed in considerable detail in my monograph (in progress).

93. Martin, 48; see Michel's (as in n. 77) claim that the subject was chosen by the priest and church wardens.

94. Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 2, 65-68, no. 112. 95. This point is also made by Warnke (as in n. 91), 45-46. For Isabella's

devotion to the Eucharist, see de Poorter (as in n. 8), vol. 1, 30-33. 96. Rubens's characterization of Christ's body as a Eucharistic wafer is

strongly suggested by Baudouin (as in n. 2), 14; idem, in Masschelein-Kleiner (as in n. 7), 26; as well as at various points by Glen. For the characterization of

the frame of The Raising of the Cross as a monstrance, see Hans Evers, "The Flemish Triptychs," in Martin, 113.

97. The best-known example is the center panel of Rogier van der Weyden's Seven Sacraments triptych (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ant- werp), where a foreground scene of the Crucifixion isjuxtaposed with a priest elevating the Host before an altar. In some early Mass books the raising of the Host was associated with the Ecce Homo, while that of the chalice was paired with the Raising of the Cross; see M. Smits van Wassenberghe, "De misverklar- ing van meester Simon van Venlo," Ons Geestelyjk Erf 16 (1942): 38-39. However, the pairing of elevatio and the Elevation of the Cross in the majority of these guides is consistent with the model established in the 14th-century Lay Folk's Mass Book, which was based on the premise that the "process of the mass represented the very process of Christ on the cross," as described in Eamon Duffy, "Seeing the Host," in The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in

England, 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 118-19. For later examples of the pairing of the elevation of the Host and the Elevation of the Cross, see James Marrow, "Symbol and Meaning in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance," Simiolus 16 (1986): 155-56; and T. Clemens, "Liturgy and Piety in the Netherlands during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," in Omnes Circumadstantes: Contribu- tions Towards a History of the Role of the People in the Liturgy (Kampen: Muis, 1990), 197-217; for further discussion of this pairing in terms of popular religious devotions, see P. Andriessen, "Elevatie en Volksdevoties," Nederland-




sche Katholieke Stemmen 41 (1941-45): 95-104. For elevation more generally, see E. Dumoutet, Le desir de voir l'hostie et les origines de la divotion au Saint-Sacrement (Paris: n.p., 1926), 37-74; V. Kennedy, "The Moment of Consecration and the Elevation of the Host," pt. 5, Medieval Studies 6 (1944): 121-50; and Karl

Ludwig Quirin, Die Elevation zur HI. Wandlung in der Romischen Messe: Ihre Enstehung und Geschichte bis zum Ende des 16. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Mainz: n.p., 1952).

98. See Rubin (as in n. 69), "Elevation Scenes," 131-34, and "Exchange and Encounter: Prayer at Elevation and Communion," 155-63; see also Valerie Reinburg, "Liturgy and the Laity in Late Medieval and Reformation France," Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 526-46, esp. 532-37; Duffy (as in n. 97), 95-102; and N. W. Swanson, "The Mass," in Religion and Devotion in

Europe, c. 1215-c.1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 137- 41. For a discussion of this practice in the Low Countries, see Jacques Toussaert, "La devotion f la pr6sence rbelle," in Le sentiment religieux en Flandre

d lafin du Moyen-Age (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1963), 195-203; Caspers (as in n. 81), 49-59 (elevation); and Cloet, 1985 (as in n. 9), 923-54.

99. A similar point is suggested by Held, vol. 1, 480; by Evers (as in n. 96), 120; and by Braham in the text for the display Rubens and the Bible (as in n. 69).

100. Here the etymology of the name Christophorus, or Christopher (literally, the bearer of Christ), that of the patron saint of the Guild of the

Harquebusiers, iconographically links those scenes in the center panel and wings of The Descent from the Cross in which Christ's body is held or carried; see Martin, 44; and Verhaegen (as in n. 74), 123. Neither Martin nor Verhaegen mentions the fact that in The Descent from the Cross the body of Christ is not only carried but it is also physically elevated: the pregnant Mary stands at the top of a flight of stairs in the scene of the Visitation, the body of the dead Christ is

presented upright, against the backdrop of the cross, and the Infant Christ is lifted up by his mother to the arms of the aged Simeon, who stands at the top of a flight of stairs. Thus, in all three cases, there is a subtle "elevation" of the body of Christ that could also be a reference to elevatio.

101. Martin, 41; Held, vol. 1, 480. 102. For the decoration of the Chapel of St. Helena in S. Croce in

Gerusalemme in Rome, see Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 2, 58-68. The program for the chapel also included depictions of Saint Helena and the Mocking of Christ (both now in the cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Puy in Grasse).

103. Although numerous authors comment on the accuracy of Rubens's inscriptions in his depiction of the titolo, to my knowledge it has not been recognized that Rubens may well have had the opportunity to examine the presumed relic while he was involved in the commission for the Chapel of St. Helena in the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome.

104. I would like to thank Robert Baldwin for allowing me to consult the manuscript and bibliography for his essay "Triumph as a Mode in Christian Art, 450-1520." See also Oleg Grabar, "Observations sur l'arc de triomphe de la Croix dit arc d'Eghinard et sur d'autres bases de la Croix," Cahiers Archiologiques 27 (1978): 61-83. It may be significant that a possible prototype for Rubens's Raising of the Cross, the panel by Wolf Huber in the Kunsthisto- risches Museum, Vienna, is also executed with an arched top.

105. See Baudouin (as in n. 50), figs. 4 (attributed to Pieter Neeffs I [?] and Frans Francken III), 5 (Pieter Neeffs II [?] and Frans Francken III); and idem (as in n. 4), 75-78 (fig. 54, the version of the picture in Madrid). These pictures raise the issue of whether triptychs were ever mounted, even temporarily, without their wings; see Martin, 43-44, 56-57, for a discussion of The Descent from the Cross, whose wings date several years after the center panel. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that views like those discussed by Baudouin are sometimes not reliable.

106. Martin, 43-44. In determining the frequency with which single panels were later reinvented as triptychs, it is instructive that Robert Campin's MWrode Altarpiece (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Cloisters Collection) may have been executed as an independent panel-without the wings, which were added up to twenty-five years later; see Maryan W. Ainsworth, entry for The Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece), in From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum ofArt, ed. Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 92.

107. Additional costs were incurred in the maintenance of the altarpiece's wooden frame, especially the constant need to repair damage done to the frame by the pressure on the hinges that attached the heavy shutters to the center panel. Although of lesser importance, chapel custodians often de- manded additional remuneration for opening and closing particularly heavy shutters before and after services. Very heavy shutters, such as those of The Raising of the Cross, may even have required the addition of a raised staircase to either side of the altar, which, with its elevated position, would have provided better leverage and thus facilitated the opening and closing of the shutters. I believe that this was the primary purpose of those stairs, with railings, mounted to each side of the altar in Gheringh's detail of the choir (Figs. 4, 25). Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from this view, the stairs and their railing resemble that in the scene of the Visitation in the left wing of Rubens's nearly contemporary Descent from the Cross.

108. Martin, 40. 109. The subject and format of the second project for St. Walburgis recall

Freedberg's observation (139) that in many smaller commissions, executed in "the by now slightly old-fashioned triptych format..,. the eucharistic dimen- sion of Christ's suffering was strongly emphasized."

110. See Vlieghe, 1997, 251. For van der Geest's art collection, see n. 16 above.

111. See Freedberg, 139, who cites Colin Eisler, "Rubens' Uses of the Northern Past: The Michiels Triptych and Its Sources," Bulletin des Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 16 (1967): 43-77, with regard to the issue of the use of archaizing formats and iconographies in these works. For a more recent comment on Rubens's use of archaic strategies, see Vlieghe's views on the presentation of the four saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross (as in n. 7), 251-52.

112. Martin, 41; for reasons that are not entirely clear, this proposal was rejected by Held, vol. 1, 480.

113. This outline, which appears in both of the Dulwich modelli, is not included on the right side of the line drawing in Baudouin, 1992, and thus it has been added by the author to the reproduction of that illustration in Figure 19.

114. I would like to thank Dr. Baudouin for giving me permission to reprint the line drawing of the combined Dulwich sketches, which originally appeared in Baudouin, 1992, as fig. 50.

115. For examples of altarpieces employing the first type of arch, see G.BA.4 (ca. 1500) and BP.7 (ca. 1550) in H. Verougstraete-Marcq and R. Van Schoute, Cadres et supports dans la peinture flamande aux 15e et 16e siecles (Brussels: n.p., 1990); for examples of the second type, see B.MC.20 (1557-58), which depicts the wings of a triptych missing its center panel; and B.MC.23 (1578) and BP. 11 (1608), both of which depict the center panels of triptychs that are now missing their wings. That the ogival silhouette was still in demand in the early 17th century is reflected in Frans Francken the Younger's Crucifixion (1603) for the Altar of the Holy Cross, in St. Andrew's, Antwerp.

116. Held, vol. 1, 481, notes that "the sketches were painted at a time when Rubens's plans had not yet assumed their final forms." The curved arch at the top of the triptych's center panel would have been consistent with Michel's claim that Willem Ignace Kerricx had painted in an arch at the top of the center panel in the final version of The Raising of the Cross; however, while no indication of this addition was discovered during the recent restoration of the panel, at the same time, because the panel had not been removed from its frame, the upper edge of the painting and the upper edge of its support could not be examined, see Michel (as in n. 77), 78, as cited by Regine Guislain- Wittermann and Jacqueline Folie, "Former Restorations and Preliminary Reports from 1627 to 1946," in Masschelein-Kleiner (as in n. 7), 35.

117. Rubenianum, Burchard's notes on Moses and the Brazen Serpent, n.p.: "vielleicht ffir (die) Riickseite der (Mitte) der Kreuzaufrichtung der St. Walburgiskirche" (possibly for the reverse of the center panel for The Raising of the Cross in St. Walburgis). The possibility that the Courtauld picture may have played a role in the program for The Raising of the Cross, in a manner consistent with Burchard's hypothesis, is discussed in d'Hulst (as in n. 7), 89, no. 24. For the Courtauld panel, see Princes Gate Collection (London: Trustees of the Home House Society, 1981), 40-42, no. 61. In the text of the Courtauld display Rubens and the Bible (as in n. 69), Braham suggested that Rubens's depiction might depend on several works, including Ferrau Fenzoni's fresco (1598) of the same subject in S. Giovanni in Laterano, a well-known work completed only two years before Rubens arrived in Rome. It may be also significant for Burchard's argument that a relief of Moses and the Brazen Serpent was executed for one of the panels adjacent to the tabernacle in Willem Ignace Kerricx's new frame for the high altar in St. Walburgis, which was mounted in the 1730s.

118. For reasons that are not clear, Rubens subsequently changed it back into a rectangle; see d'Hulst (as in n. 7), 88, who also notes that "the decision to alter the format must have been a hasty, last-minute one, as the composition was clearly designed to fit the original panel."

119. Moses and the Brazen Serpent may also have presented a typological parallel to the scene in The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament. A depiction of Moses and Aaron (which has not been described) was painted by Rubens on the pedestal (predella) of the altarpiece and remained there until the erection of a new altar in 1656, at which point it was destroyed; see Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 79-80. For the iconography of the picture, see the discussion in Jefferson C. Harrison, "The Brazen Sepent by Maarten van Heemskerck: Aspects of Its Style and Meaning," Record of the Art Museum (Princeton University) 49 (1990): 16-29.

120. Although the subject of Moses and the Brazen Serpent was frequently depicted in Netherlandish art from the medieval through the Baroque periods, examples of its juxtaposition with the Crucifixion are rare; see, for example, Jacobus de Wit's Typology of the Old and New Testament (Rijksmuseum "Het Catharijneconvent," Utrecht), as illustrated in Knipping, vol. 1, 241-42, fig. 166. For the tradition of these scenes as typological parallels, see Rubin (as in n. 69), 130, who notes their linkage (together with the Sacrifice of Isaac) in both the Biblia pauperum and the Bible moraliste; see also Gertrude Schiller, "Typologies of Sacrifice and the Cross," Iconography of Christian Art, 2 vols. (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1971), vol. 2, 124-33, with a discussion of Moses and the Brazen Serpent on 125-26; and Braham (as in n. 69).

121. See n. 98 above, esp. Reinburg's most useful article. 122. D'Hulst (as in n. 7), 89, notes that "no large painting after the modello

of that title is known or mentioned in the documents." 123. This configuration recalls that of the slightly later Resurrection (Fig. 18),

in which the scene that appears in the closed position (two angels guarding




the doors of an antique tomb) is intended to set up the scene in the open position (the Resurrection of Christ).

124. Although some scholars have considered the continuous view achieved by the integration of the panels in The Raising of the Cross to be novel or even

unique, similar panoramic vistas appear in Crucifixion triptychs produced in

Antwerp during the 15th and 16th centuries; see, for example, those Crucifixion scenes by the Master of Frankfurt (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp); Quentin Massys (Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp); and Pieter Aertsen (Museum Maagdenhuis, Antwerp). For a discussion of this phenomenon in Joos van Cleve's The Crucifixion with Saints and a Donor (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), see Maryan W. Ainsworth's entry in Ainsworth and Christiansen (as in n. 106), 356-59, cat. no. 95.

125. Martin, 39, 41. For a discussion of the iconography of this panel, see Glen, 42-43.

126. Baudouin (as in n. 2), 9. See Freedberg, 140-41, and David Rosand, " 'Divinitd di cosa dipinta: Pictorial Structure and the Legibility of the

Altarpiece," in The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, ed. P. Humfrey and M. Kemp (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 143-64, who discusses the demand and requirements for "large and legible pictures." Gheringh's picture (Fig. 4) compresses the space at the top of the two landings so that the choir is expressed in an exaggeratedly foreshortened manner.

127. A similar point is made by Shirley Blum, Early Netherlandish Triptychs: A Study in Patronage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 11, who notes that the placement of figures of saints to either side of a narrative scene detracts from its re-creation by "upsetting the simultaneity of event and

symbol." For The Raising of the Cross as an actual event, see Evers (as in n. 96). 128. Held, vol. 1, 482, discusses a drawing of the left wing, in the collection

of Count Seilern (recorded in Burchard and d'Hulst [as in n. 10], vol. 1, 100, no. 59), that appears to represent a phase between the Dulwich sketches and the final work. Martin may have doubted the authenticity of this drawing, as it is the only sketch he did not include in his otherwise complete documentation of the history of The Raising of the Cross in his book Rubens: The Antwerp Altarpieces.

129. The stylistic discrepancy between the panels mounted on the exterior of the wings and those in the open view of Rubens's Raising of the Cross is also noted by Burchard and d'Hulst (as in n. 10), vol. 1, 81, who link the exterior

panels to a group of works dating ca. 1607-9-in other words, before the interior view of The Raising of the Cross, which dates from 1609-11. That this

stylistic variance can be characterized as a "watershed" is questionable: it is

especially difficult to apply this concept when considering an artist whose

overtly eclectic style is constantly evolving and whose manner of execution seems, in numerous cases, to be determined by the taste of his patron, which differs from one to the next. This point has been reconsidered most recently by Walter Liedtke in "Rubens, His Patrons and Style," in Rembrandt, Rubens and the Art of Their Time: Recent Perspectives, ed. Roland E. Fleischer and Susan Clare Scott, Papers in the History of Art from the Pennsylvania State

University, vol. 11 (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University, 1997), 123-31. Liedtke's observation is consistent with the larger hypothesis of this

paper: the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis (Fig. 10) was initially intended for a specific site (and, presumably, for a particular patron or group of patrons) and then redeveloped as two new works (Figs. 1-3), each of which was intended for another site (and audience). This might explain, in part, the

stylistic dissimilarities between The Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament and The

Raising of the Cross. At the same time, I tend to agree with Burchard and d'Hulst's observation (vol. 1, 81) that the differences in the execution of the exterior panels (the four saints) of The Raising of the Cross and those in the interior (the panoramic scene of the Crucifixion) suggest a real break in Rubens's "stylistic history." This conclusion also supports my hunch about the evolution of the original altarpiece for St. Walburgis: the figures of the saints

(Fig. 2) date from the original program (as recorded in de Bisschop's drawings in Figs. 5, 6) of ca. 1608-9, while the scene in the interior (Fig. 1) dates from the new program of ca. 1609-11.

130. Vlieghe, 1997, 252, makes a similar point in his characterization of the saints on the exterior of The Raising of the Cross, noting that "they must be seen as an extension of an old tradition stretching back to the fifteenth century which was still being followed in Antwerp at the beginning of the seventeenth

century." 131. See Vlieghe, 1997, 251. Here Vlieghe notes, as I do, that Rubens

"conceived the four monumental figures of saints as illusionistic, painted statues, as he did on the reverse of other retable wings he executed around this time-and in the context, incidentally of a much older Netherlandish tradition." Although Vlieghe's suggestion that the figures of the four saints

may have been intended to provide "a sort of visual harmony" with the figures of the Apostles (referred to as saints in the review) mounted on the columns that flank the nave is attractive, it would only have been operative at a somewhat later date: the figures in the Apostle program depicted in Ghe-

ringh's view of the interior of St. Walburgis, which replace those in a program destroyed during the iconoclasm of the 1560s, were mounted from the 1620s

through the 1660s; see Cynthia Lawrence, Flemish Baroque Commemorative Monuments, 1566-1725 (NewYork: Garland, 1981), 290-95.

132. See Vlieghe, 1972, vol. 1, 123-25; see also S. Heiland, "Ein wiederent- decktes Predellenbild zu Rubens' Kreuzaufrichtungsaltar," Jahrbuch der Staatli- chen Kunst Sammlungen Dresden (1976-77): 43-51; and idem, "Two Rubens

Paintings Rehabilitated," Burlington Magazine 111 (1969): 421-27. 133. D'Hulst (as in n. 8), 89. 134. As originally noted by Braham (as in n. 69). 135. Martin, 55-56. 136. For the contract ofJune 1610, see Rooses, vol. 2, 79-80; Martin, 55. The

same documents appear in Extraits des comptes de l'Eglise Ste Walburge relatifs au tableau de Rubens: L'Erection de la Croix et des archives du Serment des Arquebusiers, concernant la Descent de Croix par le mime maitre (Antwerp: J.-E. Buschmann, 1840), 152.



before the raising of the cross: the origins of rubens's earliest antwerp altarpieces

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