Panel painted in oil, commissioned by the crossbowmen’s guild of Leuven for
their chapel. Ten life-size figures are packed into a shallow stage, close
to a relief, which throws everything onto gestures and faces: the fainting
Virgin falls in exactly the pose of Christ’s body. Philip II brought it to
Spain in the sixteenth century, and it is now one of the paintings people
come to the Prado to see.
