A variant of the larger (195 x 122cm.) canvas in the Louvre, from which it differs most notably in the head of the Virgin, which is not in profile in that picture. With an arched top, the Louvre version is said to have been in a Parisian church, possibly the Oratoire Saint-Honoré, until the Revolution. Both paintings were formerly regarded as the work of Simon Vouet, Le Sueur's master, whose style they strongly reflect (for the Louvre version see W.R. Crelly, The Painting of Simon Vouet, New Haven and London, 1962, pp. 65-6 and 199, no. 106, fig. 64; I. Compin and A. Roquebert, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du musée du Louvre et du musée d'Orsay, IV, Ecole française L-Z, Paris, 1986, p. 277, illustrated). The present picture was first identified as the work of Le Sueur by Dr. Robert Rowe at the time of the 1979 exhibition, while the Louvre version was first published as the work of Le Sueur in 1987 by Alain Mérot (op. cit., pp. 177-8, no. 29, fig. 36). At that time the present picture was only known to him from a photograph in the Witt Library; he has recently seen it and confirmed the attribution