The Coup de Lance
1620
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1620
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
The Coup de Lance is a 1620 paint by Peter Paul Rubens, a Baroque work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This dark sketch shows Christ on the cross with a soldier poking his side with a spear. It’s a quick study in gray tones, not bright colors. Rubens used this to plan a bigger painting. Rubens sketched like this before big jobs. It lets him work out shadows and shapes without wasting time or paint. Want to see more? Look up the Victoria and Albert Museum.
This grisaille oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens serves as a preparatory study for his 1620 altarpiece in Antwerp’s Récollets church, depicting the New Testament scene of Longinus piercing Christ’s side with a lance. The monochrome composition, typical of Rubens’ working method, illustrates the moment of Christ’s death on the cross, with a Roman soldier on horseback delivering the blow. Created around 1619, the modello would have been presented to the monastic patrons to finalize the design before execution. The final altarpiece, now in Antwerp’s Museum voor Schone Kunsten, was commissioned by…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens filled canvases with dramatic, muscular figures in swirling robes and golden light.
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