The Virgin, adorned with a jewelled crown of stars on Her head and dressed in a bright red robe, holds the Christ Child in Her arms. She turns Her head towards Her Son and gazes intently at him. The Child turns to the viewer and raises his right hand in a gesture of blessing while leaning with his left arm on His Mother's shoulder. The figures are monumental in scale, yet the composition radiates intimacy and affection. The painting turned up in 2009 in a Westphalian collection, where it had been for over 100 years. After extensive restoration and technical research, it was published by Christian Eder in the Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch in 2014 and given to Peter Paul Rubens as a late work in his own hand which remained unfinished in the workshop at his death and was completed by an employee (Eder 2014, op. cit., passim). Eder used a copperplate engraving by Jan Witdoeck as the basis for the attribution, which shows the present composition mirrored (fig. 1). The engraving is entitled Maria Mater Dei, Regina Caeli (Mary Mother of God, Queen of Heaven) and names Peter Paul Rubens as the author of the composition and Witdoeck as the engraver (“P. P. Rubens pinxit - Jo. Witdoeck Sculp.”). Jan Witdoeck worked in Peter Paul Rubens's workshop from 1635 onwards; engravings by him, all of which, as Eder points out, were made after works by Rubens in his own hand, are known for the years 1638 and 1639. As in the other engravings, Witdoeck took some liberties in the reproduction, the most striking being the change of the picture format to an oval. Eder explains this deviation in format with a circumstance that the technical examinations have brought to light: The painting was created in two stages, it remained unfinished at first and was completed at a later stage. According to the technical examination, in the first stage the figures - Mary and the Christ Child - were almost completely finished. Later, the crown (not quite correct in its perspective), the cloak of the Child on the left shoulder and the entire lower area were completed by another hand. The dendrochronological examination of the panel has also revealed that the painting must have been created around 1637/1638; a chronological determination that is again consistent with the brand mark found on the back of the panel. Based on the findings of the technical examination and the pictorial tradition, Eder concludes that the present painting was painted by Peter Paul Rubens around 1637/38, remained unfinished in the workshop at his death in 1640, and was probably completed by an assistant in the decade thereafter, i.e. between 1640 and 1650. This conclusion by Eder has been assessed differently in art historical research with regard to Rubens' involvement in the work. Hans Vlieghe, for example, questions such a contribution by Rubens. Ulrich Heinen, on the other hand, who has examined the painting in the original during and after the restoration, shares Eder's conclusion that the painting is a "work by Peter Paul Rubens that was largely by his own hand but remained unfinished". The history of the painting's reception corresponds to the history of its creation: a number of copies based on the present composition have survived, some of which, as Eder points out, are based on the unfinished painting and some on the later completed, supplemented painting. In those copies, the sizes of the figures correspond to those in the present painting and probably originate from the hand of an employee of the Rubens workshop. A second group of paintings was obviously based on the completed version. One of the early copies was auctioned at Lempertz in 2015 (fig. 2; Lempertz Auction 1057, 13.11.2015, lot 1453). This painting was given to Cornelis Schut by Walter Liedtke, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Jan de Maere, Brussels. With regard to the intimate depiction of Mary and the infant Jesus, Eder points out that Rubens had previously used the motif of the mother holding the child with arms closed into a ring in two portraits of his second wife Hélène Fourment, which are today housed in the Alte Pinakothek and the Musée du Louvre. Furthermore, Eder refers to a design by Rubens for a sculpture that is now lost, which also features the same pose of Mary and ultimately goes back to a popular medieval sculpture, namely the grace image of Our Lady of Foy. Dimensions 101 x 72 cm Artist or Maker Peter Paul Rubens and workshop Medium Oil on panel Literature Christian Eder: Maria, Gottesmutter und Himmelskönigin. Ein wiederentdecktes Gemälde aus dem Spätwerk des Peter Paul Rubens, in: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, LXXV (2014), p. 229-252. Provenance Über 100 Jahre in westfälischem Privatbesitz. - Seit 2009 in westdeutschem Privatbesitz. Notes VAT: Margin scheme