The Virgin and Child with Saint Francis

In 1625 Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, travelled to France as papal legate, and he gave this small painting on copper to the queen mother, Marie de' Medici. It was the same year the Flemish painter Rubens finished the cycle of canvases on her life for her new Luxembourg Palace in Paris.

The friar kneeling with the Christ Child in his arms is usually called Saint Francis, though holding the Child is more often the mark of Saint Anthony of Padua, and the Louvre's French title still gives both names. After passing through several Paris collections the picture reached Louis XIV. In 1895 the Louvre sent it on deposit to the museum in Toul, in Lorraine, and around 1972 it disappeared from there. It came back to the Louvre in 2004, after a police inquiry set in motion by the state commission that checks on works the national museums have lent out.