Virgin and Child Adored by Saints

The original of this composition is a small panel in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the sketch Rubens made around 1628 to show the Augustinian friars of Antwerp his plan for their high altar. At some unrecorded date a copyist repeated it on canvas, at nearly the same size, and this is that copy. The design comes over whole, the Virgin and Child enthroned high up and a crowd of saints on the steps below, but nothing is known of who painted it or when. The museum bought it in 1897 from Charles Sedelmeyer, a Paris dealer, for 15,000 francs, a little under 2,900 dollars at the time, and today catalogues it as after Rubens, with no date.