The Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse

Getty Museum

The Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse

Creator

Peter Paul Rubens

Flemish Artist · 1577–1640

All works by this person →
DesignerPainter

International diplomat, savvy businessman, devout Catholic, fluent in six languages, an intellectual who counted Europe's finest scholars among his friends, Peter Paul Rubens was always first a painter. Few artists have been capable of transforming such a vast variety of influences into a style utterly new and original. After study with local Antwerp painters, Rubens began finding his style in Ita

More on Getty ULAN

Object Description · Getty Museum

This oil sketch or *modello* was commissioned by Prince-Bishop Viet Adam for the main altarpiece of Freising Cathedral in southern Germany. In the center the Virgin Mary holds the Christ Child while trampling the serpent of sin, who curls around the moon at her feet. To the left the Archangel Michael and angels cast out Satan, the "great red dragon with seven heads," and other ghoulish demons. Above, God the Father instructs an angel to place a pair of wings on the Virgin's shoulders. Peter Paul Rubens contrasted good with evil by juxtaposing the agony and gruesomeness of the demons as they fall into hell with the Virgin and Child rising heavenward at the right. Rapid and gestural brushstrokes lend immediacy and drama to the scene.

Getty Museum’s catalogue record

produced_by.carried_out_by[0].id
https://data.getty.edu/museum/collection/person/87f818f8-8932-4003-8975-ef910d06d4df
Artist/Maker
Peter Paul Rubens
subject_of[Homepage].id
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RGR
Date
about 1623–1624
Medium
Oil on panel
Culture
Flemish
Object Type
Painting

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Getty Museum’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

This is not the finished altarpiece. It is the pitch. Around 1623 to 1624, Peter Paul Rubens painted this oil modello on panel to convince a prince-bishop to award him the commission for Freising Cathedral's main altar. On the right, the Virgin rises serenely on a crescent moon while on the left, a writhing seven-headed dragon and contorted demons crash downward under Saint Michael's sword. The rapid, confident brushstrokes you can see across the surface reveal exactly how Rubens thought before he painted large.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

View at Getty Museum ↗

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.aDYMaKiRAZFWUGT7.ZTI-CTTfY1bHO24m9zE0kmFiCr1YLG_NuRthNLDeOJkym8407cagl930Y64ODcOcbU18qUwjsN2m3DvcuX2npquP37DCPgApVL2852Das--ZKVVNNU_fNlT9cqDAyuih0Ql-hiBCrhGJjqlMxf36iWXWXu6E3mNUS-00WS5KjkjPgo8mOBNlw2J3F-ClGrHXFbDz17bFRBvImOt6O4zw3sAARMVtPty0gdBnH7mFMm8AzLR_X1Lmsdm1dkALh_1FbzQ_GrLsgrpx7_s18uXnKLDHzfLximx5g_9J3q6A8KGTvV4qIVtAMJLUiXb32lNAmG2xOs_BffHtT-t4_Wu5uc657ksrgv3lMv7ZDNso2VzqiWGOFZsxgGk0edx67lc2NK8j5lN7B3ywNrb0elXdSee at Getty Museum QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.hsXBypnxO-wMEq9P.vCipzChVwyuBnJXfOQXMIz1P6yfQ3MzGR3AV1kZTWsc9h_kznTh-YbvlTYg18FhWplqiXRUtUKpN2fA9DAUp2S9y0Oe7f0HMvnbEZLqIHiKtM6hH58DNRVYINCbffclcGUnuj7URzN6XrlQKnvDegriVqBZzztkX4W2bZAY6D6GPx8zAJuV42RZ2qnF9ee0Egj8ZavYd5ZjG7Ly0Oc-nufI83dDBsWB2EEFYCEK7Y44iREllku4PFok7ymHFGT1Ecw1cYA5xmV4tsM5pXcIzsVqgTGBBqcLPsBs6jIWDZIJue2Itn4jUkEQ48pP2jvDc7pKSNvEjBv86vgty_IghcMupXR076oYM0Fh5qHLItXVcPu5O2gXy0SKC2FE
Open this page
See at Getty Museum
How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Getty Museum’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
973f9a36-25eb-4936-ad83-f1663a370d55
Object Type
Painting
  • Getty Museum field “Object Type” · copied as is
Creator
Peter Paul Rubens
  • Getty Museum field “Artist/Maker” · copied as is
Culture
Flemish
  • Getty Museum field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
Oil on panel
  • Getty Museum field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
Paintings
  • Getty Museum field “Department” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Getty's classification category is stored as department.
Credit Line
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Getty Museum field “Standard Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Getty Museum field “Source Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
Date
about 1623–1624
  • Getty Museum field “Date” · copied as is
Begin Year
1623
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.begin_of_the_begin” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1624
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.end_of_the_end” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

The Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse

Sep 26, 2026 · Short

YouTubeInstagram
Follow LinkedCultureYouTubeInstagramBluesky
Museum record

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.