The deposition. Pieter van Mol was a Flemish painter born in Antwerp in 1599 and died in Paris on April 8, 1650. Between the Flemish and French painting schools, he is one of the 12 founding members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture of Paris. He had several influences such as Janssens, Jordaens, Caravaggio and Rubens, with whom he probably worked when he was a master in Antwerp.
This oil on canvas created around 1630, represents the dead Christ at the descent of the cross surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Saint John in the foreground who looks at us as if we were there.. Van Mol, having made several ecclesiastical commissions, has two other known works representing the deposition, one at the Notre-Dame church in Calais and one at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims. It is part of the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
