Adoration is the highest office

The verb in this title is not "attend" and not "accompany". Adoration, in the scheme Western art inherited, is the work of the top of the hierarchy: the first triad — seraphim, cherubim, thrones — was defined by proximity to God and by contemplation rather than by errands. Messenger work belongs at the bottom. A title saying that angels adore is describing, whether or not the painter intended it, the one activity the highest orders were said to perform.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1608 and gives Peter Paul Rubens, filed as Flemish and Baroque. It measures 425 x 250 cm — upright, and by the record's numbers among the largest entries on this site. The measured colour families are ochre and red. The recorded location is a private collection; eleven entries here carry that as their location, the same number as the Louvre.

The word does not settle the rank

None of this identifies which order is depicted, and the catalogue does not claim it. Not one title among these 224 entries names a seraph or a cherub — the count for each is zero — while sixteen name an archangel. The doctrine put the adoring orders at the summit; painting drew the errand-runners and left the summit undescribed. This title uses the summit's verb for figures the record leaves unranked.