The Holy Family with Angels

By 1645 Rembrandt was the most sought-after painter in Amsterdam, and here he does something a wealthy client might not have expected from a holy picture. He turns it into an ordinary Dutch home. Joseph works at his carpenter's bench in the background while Mary, seated low with a heavy book on her lap, pauses to lift the cradle's curtain and check on the sleeping child. The whole room is lit by firelight and by a soft glow that dissolves into hovering angels above the crib. It reads almost as a scene of family life, raised out of the everyday only by that light. The picture has been in Saint Petersburg since Catherine the Great bought up great Dutch collections in the 18th century.