The vanishing Rubens painting

Once a week, after the Saturday evening Mass, the faithful of the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) can witness a very curious sight: the Rubens painting entitled Angels Adoring the Valicellian Madonna that is behind the altar disappears. In its place appears a said miraculous icon of the Virgin. Around the niche that houses the image, concentric circles of adoring angels and cherubs are positioned, while a copper plate, on which a Madonna and Blessing Child was painted by Rubens himself, reproduces and protects the sacred icon below, but can be lifted by means of a mechanism of pulleys and ropes. Today, with a remote control the sacristan makes one painting go down and another go up. The invention is by Rubens himself.