The Holy Family with Saints Francis and Anne and the Infant Saint John the Baptist

Peter Paul Rubens Flemish

Not on view

An ecstatic Saint Francis adores the infant Christ, who appears in this warm-hearted vision with the Virgin Mary and her mother, Saint Anne, a subdued Saint Joseph, and a playful young Saint John the Baptist. Rubens made a number of modifications in the course of work on the painting, intensifying the friar’s impetuous movement and revising the Virgin’s pose from a formal profile to a casual expansiveness. American taste was slow to embrace the exuberant emotionalism of Rubens; this is the first of his works to enter an American public collection.

The Holy Family with Saints Francis and Anne and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp), Oil on canvas

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