Church of St Vincent

A village of about 1,500 people on the Garonne keeps a Rembrandt in its parish church. The painting is a Christ on the Cross from 1631, a devotional picture made for private use, with Christ alone on the cross against a dark ground. In 1781 it was sold at auction in Bruges, described as painted in 1631 by Rembrandt, and at the start of the 19th century Xavier Duffour, a man from this village, bought it and gave it to his home parish.

The church of Saint-Vincent is far older than the picture. It was built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, and its Romanesque capitals are carved with Bible scenes, Old Testament stories on the south side and the New Testament on the north and around the arch into the choir. The carved wooden choir stalls came from somewhere else. They were made in 1691 for the Benedictine abbey of La Réole, a short way down the Garonne, and were moved here around 1803. Of the original 63 seats, 49 survive.

The Rembrandt itself spent six years away. A faulty window in the church led to its removal in 2016 to the cathedral in Bordeaux, and it came home in June 2022, now shown in an armoured case with alarms and video surveillance.