The scene depicts one of the most dramatic moments of the Passion and Death of Christ, when the Virgin, accompanied by Mary Magdalene who kisses the Redeemer´s hand, and by Saint John who contemplates the scene, assumes her greatest significance in her role as mother during the moments immediately after the loss of her Son in the tragedy of Mount Calvary. Van Dyck succeeds in expressing this aspect masterfully: the light fully bathes her face and the features of the Saviour, whose corpse lies on a white linen sheet spread on a stone. The painter follows a usual pattern for this popular theme, though instead of portraying Jesus´ body on his mother´s lap, as the Middle Age masters did up until the height of the Renaissance -we might recall Michelangelo´s very famous Pietà (Rome, St Peter´s Basilica, Vatican)- he prefers an intermediate position rather than showing the mother reminiscing about the Son´s childhood by placing him on her knees. Seeking a more dramatic Baroque effect, little short of the idea of ecstasy, he links both images and depicts the Virgin raising her tear-bathed eyes heavenward, with Christ´s head on her breast and one arm on her lap. This attitude appears to be one of reproach towards the Eternal Father, who did not allow the Sacrifice of Isaac centuries earlier, choosing his own Son for the supreme martyrdom. The authorship of the painting has been controversial ever since it began to be analysed. After weighing up opinions that it is not an original but a mere copy of the work painted by the master for the Begijnhof church in his city of birth (Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts), in 1999 Diaz Padrón rectified his previous opinion (1975) and classified it among Van Dyck´s originals, judging it to be a smaller repetition of the latter. As to the ideas that gave rise to the composition and what could have conditioned the attitudes of the human figures, it is necessary to turn to classical sculpture, from which Rubens was so inclined to borrow concepts and forms when establishing gestures and postures. Van Dyck was able both to evoke everything he had observed and studied on his travels around Italy and to make use of the repertories of engravings or small bronze casts of known pieces from antiquity. Van Dyck learned Rubens´ lesson well on the use of sculpture, making formal borrowings from this art, which he imbued with life and warmth, transforming stone and marble into flesh and effluvia of sweat and blood. Jesus´ skin reflects tonalities that are revealing testimonies to the metamorphosis undergone by a body without the breath of life and achieve a naturalistic result that the viewer finds lifelike. The compositional guidelines are part of an intelligent scheme designed to balance the volumes and achieve optimal rhythmic coherence. Mary Magdalene is incorporated into the action as part of a pyramidal pattern with the Virgin in the upper corner, where the dark background of the rock helps to highlight her presence next to Jesus´ body, which stands out illuminated with the Olympian magnificence of a classical statue. Saint John, in contrast, in the shadow, helps shape a diagonal that begins in the carefully rendered symbols of the Saviour´s torment in the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas and ends upper right. The draughtsmanship, the range of colours, the use of light and the dramatic tension in general, which is easily seen, are superb and, now visible in their full splendor following the recent restoration of the work, confirm the opinions of those who attribute it to Van Dyck, allaying earlier misgivings that led it to be ascribed it to the master´s workshop. Paul de Pont (Paulus Pontius) engraved it in reverse (New Holl, VII, 538) emphasising its differences with the painting in Antwerp, particularly the details of the faces (From Titian to Goya. Great Masters of the Museo del Prado, National Art Museum of China-Shanghai Museum, 2007, pp. 369-370).