Virgem com o Menino e santos

Agostino Carracci signed and dated this altarpiece 1585, low on the step of the Virgin's throne. It was made for the Benedictine convent of San Paolo in Parma and commissioned by its abbess, Margherita Farnese, of the family that ruled the city. The saints gathered around the throne are the ones the nuns turned to in prayer: Margaret of Antioch with her small dragon, the infant John the Baptist, and Cecilia, patron of music, with her little organ. Two centuries later the picture went travelling against its will. French troops carried it off to Paris in 1796, and it returned to Italy only in 1816, settling not back in the convent but in the Parma gallery where it hangs today.