The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints

In 1628 the Augustinian friars of Antwerp had a past to live down. A century earlier their house in the city had leaned so far toward Luther that in 1527 they were driven out of Antwerp, and the order settled there again only in 1607. The museum that now holds this altarpiece reads it as the friars' statement of loyalty to Rome.

That is why the steps of the throne are so crowded. At the centre the Christ Child slips a ring onto the finger of Saint Catherine. The soldier saints George and Sebastian crowd the front, and at the lower right Augustine himself, the order's founder, kneels in bishop's robes holding a burning heart.

The English painter Joshua Reynolds saw it in the church in 1781. He admired it, called it a subject where no story is represented, and noticed that Rubens had gathered saints from very different centuries around one throne.