In near perfect condition, both attribution and sate of this painting isrecognizable in its ordering of the landscape and architectural setting, the figure types including the angels, and the evenly balanced chiaroscuro and clear coloring as the work of Jacques Stella on the cusp of his return to Paris in 1634 after an eleven year stay in Italy where he fully mastered the art of the Carracci and in particular Domenichino. In Paris, that style was gradually revised to accord with the dicta of Poussin’s stringently intellectual classicizing idiom.

However, this painting is still redolent with the empathetic warmth of depictions of this subject by members of the Carracci school, the clarity and warmth of its colors heightened by the effects of a copper support, and scaled more for the domestic contemplation of cozy intimacy in an idyllic setting than for service in doctrinal public ritual.