The Virgin of the Rosary venerated by Carthusians

This tall canvas was never meant to hang alone. Around 1638 Zurbarán was commissioned to fill a huge altarpiece for the Carthusian monastery of La Defensión, outside Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain, a whole wall of paintings for monks who lived in silence and wore undyed white wool. That is who kneels here: Carthusian brothers gazing up at the Virgin, their habits a study in the whites and greys Zurbarán loved. The monastery was later broken up and its pictures scattered across Europe, which is how this one ended up in Poznań, in Poland. In 2026 it travelled to London to be shown beside two of its long-separated companions from the same altarpiece, together again for the first time in about 175 years.