This tiny & exquisite painting shows Ludovico's art at its most delicate. The Holy Spirit is seen descending upon the marriage of the Virgin Mary to Joseph, whose rod has symbolically burst into flower. The work was once attributed to Annibale Carracci, ...

According to legend, suitors for the hand of the Virgin presented rods at the temple in Jerusalem; she was to marry the suitor whose rod flowered; here Joseph's has blossomed as a dove. The Virgin's parents Joachim & Anne in the background are identified by their haloes. The panel was flanked by the ' Presentation of the Virgin' & the ' Coronation of the Virgin' to form a triptych. The frame is original. The back has a punched & painted diamond design, typical of a folding altarpiece, such as a triptych. The position of the signature suggests that this was the central panel. ...

The Virgin's marriage to Saint Joseph is not described in the Gospels but appears in the New Testament Apocrypha & the 13th-century book, the ' Golden Legend'. These sources tell how Joseph was chosen to marry the Virgin because of a miraculous sign
- the flowering of his rod. Here he holds his rod surmounted by a dove (the symbol of the Holy Ghost) while placing a ring on the Virgin's h&. The Virgin's mother, Saint Anne, stands on the right & on the left two disappointed suitors break their rods. This painting on panel, & one in the Vatican Museum of the ' Birth of the Virgin', are almost certainly from the same predella, (the lower section of an altarpiece). They may belong to an altarpiece of the ' Virgin & Child with Saints Andrew & Onophrius' in the Pinacoteca, Siena.
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The village of Arleux is close to Arras & Douai in north-east France. In the Spring of 1871 Corot left Paris & the upheaval of the Commune to stay with his friend & biographer Alfred Robaut at Douai. In June & July they rented a cottage at Arleux, where he painted a number of views. In the foreground of this atmospheric landscape the paint has been scratched with the wrong end of the brush. ...

Saint Januarius, Bishop of Benevento & patron of Naples, was beheaded near Pozzuoli about AD 305. The executioner stands behind the saint & an angel descends with a palm of martyrdom. The painting is presumably the modello for the large altarpiece in S ...

Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr, & was stoned to death. Saul (the future Saint Paul) guards the clothes of those who stone Saint Stephen outside the city. (Acts of the Apostles 7: 58-60). If the painting is definitely by Antonio Carracci, a ...

The miracle depicted has been set before the high altar of the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. Many of the objects shown can be proved to have existed in the church. This is the only surviving representation of the church as it was in about 1500. Charles ...

Saint Hubert (about 656
- 727) was first Bishop of Liège. The painting shows an angel appearing with a stole for him during his
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This picture & the other ' The Massacre of the Innocents with Herod' in the Collection by the same artist are probably fragments from a single work. Details of the work are taken from Mantegna's engravings of ' The Entombment' & ' Bacchanal with a Wine-press'. Some details recur (with variations) in Mocetto's engravings ' The Killing of the Sow' & ' The Altar of Sacrifice' & in a fresco ascribed to him in Verona. ...

This picture & the other ' Massacre of the Innocents' in the Collection by the same artist are probably fragments from a single work. Details of the work are taken from Mantegna's engravings of ' The Entombment' & ' Bacchanal with a Wine-press'. Some details recur (with variations) in Mocetto's engravings ' The Killing of the Sow' & ' The Altar of Sacrifice' & in a fresco ascribed to him in Verona. ...