(Sassoferrato 1609–1685 Rome)
Madonna and Child,
oil on canvas, oval, 53.5 x 45 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Massimo Pulini for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph.

The present painting relates to an inverted composition by Sassoferrato in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 1991.693).

The compositional elegance, the enamel-like application of paint, and the purity of the representation attest to the great pictorial quality of the present work. The simplicity and sobriety of the composition makes this one of the most effective and iconic images of the seventeenth century, a time when the Marian cult, due to the directives of the Counter Reformation, gained new traction. In this context Sassoferrato’s intense but tender production of religious subjects, largely conceived for private devotion, attained great success. The artist’s aspiration to restore a timeless ideal of beauty looked to the High Renaissance, and especially to Raphael, and promoted the recovery of a devotional image.

Giovanni Battista Salvi, called il Sassoferrato after his native city in the Marches was principally active in central Italy. After initial training with his father, he made a formative journey to Rome where he entered the studio of Domenichino. This experience brought him into direct contact with the classical Baroque painters, the Carracci and Guido Reni, as well as stimulating his admiration for Renaissance art which he wished to emulate. Indeed, Sassoferrato’s painting style is characterised by a refined archaism which refers to the great masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was greatly appreciated as a portraitist but, above all, he became celebrated for his highly refined religious cabinet paintings which are characterised by a quiet, private, intimacy, which is apparent in the present work.