(Sassoferrato 1609–1685 Rome)
Madonna and Child,
oil on canvas, 31 x 24 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome

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

This small painting depicts the Virgin gently embracing the sleeping Child on her lap. It is a celebrated composition, which Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato, and his studio repeated on several occasions, even introducing putti or applying a horizontal format, as is the case of the painting preserved in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

The specific iconography of the present painting is found in much larger works by the master’s hand, such as the painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna or that in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne. Apparently it derives from an invention of Guido Reni that is today known only through an engraving. Another similar Madonna and Child of smaller size can be compared to the present work: this was sold at Christie’s in 2015 (sale Christie’s Paris, 30 March 2015, lot. 19) with an attribution to Sassoferrato confirmed by Macé de Lépinay.

Giovan Battista Salvi, better known by the name of his city of origin, received his first training from his father Tarquinio, before making, what would be for him, a crucial and formative journey to Rome. Here he studied not only the works of his contemporaries, Guido Reni and Domenichino, but also the great masters of the past century, and first and foremost, Raphael. Indeed, Sassoferrato’s paintings are stylistically steeped in sixteenth-century classicism, and his compositions often reveal passages of highly refined archaism. Although he was greatly sought-after as a portraitist, the artist is most celebrated for his devotional paintings, which like the present work, are characterised by an intimate and refined tone.