(Sassoferrato 1609–1685 Rome)
The Madonna and Child,
oil on canvas, 47.5 x 37.3 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 a composition by Sassoferrato that is known through various replicas.

Giovanni Battista Salvi, named after his native town, was known as ‘Il Sassoferato’. He received his first training as a painter from his father, Tarquinio, and subsequently went to Rome, where he studied the works of his contemporaries, as well as the works of Guido Reni, Domenichino, and the Carracci. However, Raphael was to become his most important model. He is known to have directly copied the latter’s compositions (see, for example, Sassoferato’s Madonna and Child in der Galleria Sabauda, Turin [inv. no. 482], which is based on Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks [National Gallery, London]). Although Sassoferato was an accomplished portraitist, he specialised in devotional pictures, most of which showed the Madonna as a solitary figure or together with the Christ Child. The large number of autograph replicas and workshop copies of his compositions is proof of the great popularity the artist enjoyed during his lifetime.