The Birth of the Virgin

In 1605 Cesare d'Este, duke of Modena, ordered this altarpiece from Annibale Carracci, then working in Rome. It was never delivered. The canvas was still in the painter's hands when he died in 1609, and by 1633 it hung in the Cantucci family chapel at Loreto, in the basilica of the Holy House on Italy's Adriatic coast. The birth is told in two layers. Saint Anne rests in her bed at the back, while in front a circle of women gathers round the newborn Mary. At the top of the arch, God the Father looks down through clouds full of child angels. From 1772 to 1781 the picture was in Rome to be copied in mosaic, and in 1797 French commissioners took it to Paris. In 1815, when many seized works went back to Italy, this one was left at the Louvre.