The Purification of the Virgin

Luke's Gospel says that Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth, to make the offering the law of Moses asked of a new mother. A family too poor for a lamb gave two turtledoves or two young pigeons. Reni puts that humble offering right at the front. Below the kneeling Virgin, at the foot of the altar steps, a small boy reaches into a dish of white doves. That child turned out to be the most copied part of the picture. Reni's studio painted him on his own more than once, an engraving spread him further, and one of those single-figure copies is now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. The altarpiece was made for the Sassi chapel in Modena Cathedral, where it took the place of an older picture by Dosso Dossi, court painter to the Este dukes. The Louvre dates it only to the second quarter of the 17th century, and records that it was on that altar before 1636.