The Circumcision of Christ

Rubens painted this in 1605, years before he became the most sought-after painter in northern Europe. He was still a young man learning his trade in Italy, employed at the court of the Duke of Mantua and absorbing everything he could from Italian art. A Genoese patron, Marcello Pallavicino, commissioned it for the high altar of the new Jesuit church in Genoa, where it still stands. Because it hangs high above the altar, Rubens built the whole scene to be read from below, the figures crowding forward and up toward a burst of light and angels overhead. That steep foreshortening and the theatrical lighting show a painter already taking in the drama of the Italians he admired.