Van Dyck (Santa Rosalía coronada de rosas por dos ángeles)

''Saint Rosalia Crowned by Angels'' is a c.1625 oil on canvas painting by

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

, one of five surviving works showing the saint which he produced whilst he was quarantined in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, Sicily due to a plague. It is now in the

Wellington Collection The Wellington Collection is a large art and militaria collection housed at Apsley House in London. It mainly consists of paintings, including 83 formerly in the Spanish royal collection, given to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who was P ...

Apsley House Apsley House is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic roundabout in the centre of which stands the Wellington Arch. It i ...

in London. In the painting

Saint Rosalia Rosalia (1130–1166), also called La Santuzza or "''The Little Saint''", and in Sicilian as "Rusulia", is the patron saint of Palermo in Italy, Camargo, Chihuahua, and three towns in Venezuela: El Hatillo, Zuata, and El Playon. She is es ...

intercedes for the plague-stricken. Its composition is very similar to two other 1624 works, one still in

and the other in the

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

. All three show the influence of

Pietro Novelli Pietro Novelli (March 2, 1603 – August 27, 1647) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Palermo. Also known as ''il Monrealese'' or ''Pietro "Malta" Novelli'' to distinguish him from his father, Pietro Antonio Novelli I ...

, then also in the city.

History

It appeared in the "passage to the king's pew" in Madrid's

Palacio Real The Royal Palace of Madrid ( es, Palacio Real de Madrid) is the official residence of the Spanish royal family at the city of Madrid, although now used only for state ceremonies. The palace has of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms. It is the ...

according to the 1772 inventory, moving to "the prince's dressing room" by 1776, where it still was in 1789. Looted by

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

, it was found in his abandoned carriage at the

Battle of Vitoria At the Battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813) a British, Portuguese and Spanish army under the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under King Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan near Vitoria in Spain, eventually leading to ...

in 1813 by the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

, to whom it was formally granted three years later by

Ferdinand VII , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Charles IV of Spain , mother = Maria Luisa of Parma , birth_date = 14 October 1784 , birth_place = El Escorial, Spain , death_date = , death_place = Madrid, Spain , burial_plac ...

Exhibition

It was loaned to the

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London, which opened to the public in 1817. It was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane using an innovative and influential method of illumination. Dulwich is the oldest publi ...

in 2011-2012 for display with the other four Saint Rosalia works.

References

{{Authority control Paintings by Anthony van Dyck 1625 paintings Paintings in the Wellington Collection Paintings formerly in the Spanish royal collection Paintings of Saint Rosalia Epidemics in art