Die heilige Cäcilia spielt das Virginal

This is one of the last things Rubens ever painted. He finished it around 1639 or 1640, and he died in May of 1640, in Antwerp, at 62, his hands by then crippled with gout. The subject is Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, seated at a virginal, a small keyboard instrument, her eyes lifted as if following the sound upward. Rubens was one of the great colourists of his age, and here he seems to be after music itself, the tones carried over into warm, shifting colour. At her feet a little dog lies asleep, an old symbol of faithfulness in marriage, a nod to Cecilia's own. Records suggest the panel was given to a Brussels official named Jacob van Ophem for services rendered, which would make this a gift from the painter near the very end.