The Virgin Mary presenting Saint Francis of Assisi with the infant Christ. Engraving by C. Visscher after P.P. Rubens, 16--.

Description of the painting, indicating left and right in the opposite direction to the present print: "The legend here depicted belongs to the time of the Counter-Reformation, as shown by E. Mâle (L 'art religieux après le Concile de Trente, Paris, 1932, p. 174). As the story is related e.g. in L. Wadding, Annales Minorum (2nd ed., I, Rome, 1731, p. 237), the Virgin appeared to St. Francis in a blaze of light and laid the infant Christ in his arms. One of the friars witnessed the miracle and was so overwhelmed that he lost consciousness. St. Francis is seen kneeling in the left foreground in front of the Virgin, who is sanding on a cloud and holding out the Christ Child towards him. The astonished friar is on the extreme left behind St. Francis, part of his figure being cut through by the edge of the picture. In accordance with the legend, the Virgin’s head is sur rounded by a sublime radiance and is wreathed, as it were, by four or five frolicking cherubs."—Vlieghe, loc. cit.