Madonna of Saint Sebastian

In 1523 plague moved through Modena, as it did through Italian cities every generation or so. The confraternity dedicated to Saint Sebastian — a saint people prayed to against exactly this — commissioned Correggio to paint an altarpiece, and he delivered it the following year. Sebastian kneels below the Virgin, and to the right stands Saint Roch, the other great plague protector, which is how the picture can be dated to that outbreak. Correggio fills the sky with tumbling, laughing angels, the mood closer to celebration than to fear. The panel was built from poorly chosen boards that warped over the centuries, so its surface now ripples like a washboard. Augustus III of Saxony bought it in 1746 and carried it north to Dresden, where it remains.