In a paper shared with Artnet News, Büttner said it was “striking” that a painting of this calibre could have remained unnoticed for such a long time. He noted that the artwork at one time belonged to the 19th-century academic painter William Bouguereau, but if he knew its significance, he did not reveal it.

The scholar admired how “Christ is shown isolated, standing out brightly against an ominous, dark sky,” noting also how “in a painfully realistic manner, Christ’s upper body arches forward, its weight shown by the strain on the arms” stretched overhead. “Behind the green and overgrown rocky backdrop of Golgotha is a view of Jerusalem illuminated, but apparently under a rainstorm,” Büttner added. This kind of accuracy was very typical of Rubens.