 The commission was transferred to Rubens at an unknown time.Rubens completed the painting of the Woman of the Apocalypse, a subject that had been very popular in German iconography since the 15th century.The bishop had commissioned a subject "applicable to all feast days of the Blessed Virgin" ("so sich auf alle unser Lieben Frauen Fest applizieren liesse"), which made the Madonna of the Revelation, associated in Counter-Reformation iconography with both the Assumption of the Virgin and the Immaculate Conception, an apt choice.