Painted by Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp around 1611–1612, 'The Massacre of the Innocents' translates the Gospel of Matthew's account of Herod's slaughter of the male infants of Bethlehem into a turbulent Baroque composition: a vortex of muscular soldiers, screaming mothers, and dead children interlocked in violent diagonals. Sold at Sotheby's London in 2002 for over GBP 49 million — then a record for any Old Master — it was donated six years later by Kenneth Thomson to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, where it is now the central European painting in the collection.

Exhibition Venue

Art Gallery of Ontario

Toronto, Canada