Peter Paul Rubens

According to Wikipedia the side panels are on hinges — the whole thing folds shut over the middle like a cupboard, so there's an open view and a closed one. It was made to stand over a church altar, right where the congregation would face it.

The gallery paid a record price for this in 1980, and from what I've read people have argued ever since about whether it's really his at all — the museum says yes, the doubters have never let it go.

This is the Bible story where Abigail rushes to meet David's men with food, trying to stop them attacking her household after her husband snubbed them. It doesn't end there — Nabal dies soon after, and Abigail ends up marrying David instead.

This is the myth of Leander, who used to swim across the strait most nights to visit Hero — until a storm caught him and he drowned. What you're looking at is apparently the moment after: sea nymphs pulling his body from the water, with Hero said to have thrown herself in after him.

This is the Bible story of Daniel thrown into a den of lions for refusing to stop praying to his own god — and coming out fine. Apparently Rubens painted the lions true to life-size, which is part of why the scene lands so hard.

This was painted just after her wedding — the Spinola and Doria families were about as prominent as Genoa got, so a portrait like this was as much a statement about the marriage as about her. Apparently the canvas has been trimmed down more than once over the centuries, losing a garden in the background and part of her lower half in the process.

This one used to go by another name too — 'The Fall of the Rebel Angels.' What's happening is the archangel Michael and his angels hurling a crowd of the damned down into the abyss. Apparently it was painted as an altarpiece, which feels like a lot to put behind a church service.