(Sassoferrato 1609–1685 Rome)
Madonna,
oil on canvas, 43 x 34 cm, framed

We are grateful to François Macé de Lépinay for confirming the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The present painting is based on a composition by Sassoferrato, known in several, autograph replicas. In some of them the Madonna is looking towards left as in the present painting, in others towards the right. In some of them the hands of the Madonna are also visible.

Giovanni Battista Salvi, known as ‘il Sassoferato’, after the town in which he was born, learned the rudiments of painting from his father Tarquino before embarking on a trip to Rome. There he studied the works of his contemporaries, including Reni, Domenichino, and the Carracci. His greatest influence, however, was Raphael and he is known to have directly copied the latter’s compositions (see, for example, Sassoferato’s Madonna and Child in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin [inv. no. 482], which is directly based on Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks on loan to the National Gallery, London). Despite being an accomplished portraitist, Sassoferato specialized in easel paintings of a devotional nature, usually representing the Madonna alone or with the Christ Child. The large number of autograph and studio replicas of Sassoferrato’s compositions attest to the popularity they enjoyed within the artist’s own lifetime.