San Francisco recibiendo al Niño Jesús

Rubens painted this around 1618, at the height of his powers and running the busiest workshop in Antwerp, turning out altarpieces for a Catholic church reasserting itself after the Reformation. The subject is tender rather than grand: the Virgin leaning to place the infant Christ into the arms of Saint Francis, who kneels to receive him. Francis was the saint of humility, and the picture is built around that quiet exchange. It left its first home long ago. In the Napoleonic years the French state emptied part of the Louvre into provincial museums, and under that scheme the canvas was sent down to Dijon, where it has hung ever since.