Descent from the Cross
by JOUVENET, Jean-Baptiste, Oil on canvas, 424 x 312 cm
This bold and vigorous painting, with its magnificent harmony of warm colours, foreshadows the most beautiful of the nineteenth-century Romantic Paintings. Executed for the church of the Capuchins in the Place Louis -le-grande, Paris, it was donated to the Acad�mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1756. During the French Revolution, it was acquired by the Louvre, as were all the other paintings which had belonged to the Acad�mie.