Georges de La Tour - The Education of the Virgin - 1650
The Frick Collection
de La Tour (March 13, 1593 – January 30, 1652) was a French Baroque painter.  He painted mostly religious chiaroscuro scenes lit by candlelight. He often painted several variations on the same subjects, and his surviving output is relatively small. His son Étienne was his pupil, and distinguishing between their work in versions of La Tour's compositions is difficult. The authorship of this painting has been much debated. Recent studies of the several surviving versions suggest that all may be replicas of a lost original by Georges de La Tour. Yet some scholars maintain that the Frick canvas is the original; it has been attributed to the artist’s son Étienne primarily because of the form of its signature. The painter’s striking use of light imbues the popular genre motif of St. Anne teaching her daughter to read the Bible. See original http://bit.ly/1NAzS7t