The present picture is an autograph reduction of Poerson's cartoon for one of the series of fourteen tapestries of 'Scenes from the Life of the Virgin' now in Strasbourg Cathedral. The tapestries were commissioned for Notre-Dame de Paris by one of its canons, Michel Le Masle, and were woven between 1638 and 1657; they were used to decorate the choir on feast days until they were sold to Strasbourg in 1739. The first two scenes were designed by Philippe de Champaigne, the third by Jacques Stella and the remaining eleven by Poerson (for a full discussion see J. Lejeaux, La tenture de la vie de la Vierge à la cathédrale de Strasbourg, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXIV, Dec. 1948, pp.405-18). In overall composition the present painting corresponds with the Strasbourg tapestry (for which see H. Göbel, Wandteppische, II, Die Romanischen Länder, 1928, II, pl.20), although in reverse and with numerous differences of detail.

Two other reductions by Poerson of other cartoons have already been identified, 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' at Cologne and 'The Annunciation' sold at Christie's, Monaco, 3 April 1987, lot 90, and now in the Musée Carnavelet, Paris. A signed 'Nativity' in the Louvre has hitherto been associated with the Strasbourg tapestry (see, for instance, the catalogue of the exhibition, Le Classicisme Français, 30 April-9 June 1985, pp.53-4, no.30, illustrated); however, the two compositions are quite different apart from the angel seen from behind which recurs in both, and the Louvre picture should now rather be seen as a reduction of the large picture in the church at Montfort l'Amaury