saint Michel dédiant ses armes à la Vierge

This rare devotional work from Louis Le Nain, depicting Saint Michael dedicating his arms to the Virgin, falls outside the peasant genre painting for which the Le Nain brothers are best known. Painted in 1638, it reflects the range of commissions available to French painters of the period, who might be called upon for altarpieces and devotional works even if their reputation rested on other subjects. The combination of a military saint and the Virgin suggests a possible commission for a chapel or confraternity.

Saint Michael kneels in armor before a luminous vision of the Virgin above. Le Nain uses a vertical composition to separate the earthly and heavenly zones, with the warm heavenly light contrasting with the cooler, denser treatment of the armored figure below.