Le Couronnement de sainte Catherine

Rubens finished this around 1631 for the Augustinian church in Mechelen, near Antwerp. He was in his mid-fifties, back at his easel after years spent as a diplomat crisscrossing Europe for the Spanish crown. The subject is a vision of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the early martyr who dreamed that the Christ child took her as his spiritual bride. Rubens gives it his own turn: in place of the usual wedding ring, the infant Christ leans from Mary's lap to set a laurel wreath on Catherine's head, while angels shower down more flowers and leaves. The colour is full Rubens, all warm flesh and shot silk. During the Second World War the painting was seized for Hermann Goering, and later found by American troops hidden in a salt mine.