Giovanni Battista Salvi, called il Sassoferrato

(Sassoferrato 1609–1685 Rome)
Madonna in prayer,
bears inscription on the reverse: Sassoferrato/Pinxit,
oil on canvas, 30.5 x 23.5 cm, framed
Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, Monaco, 2 July 1993, lot 195 (as Sassoferrato);
Private European collection

The present painting displays the inheritance of cinquecento classicism and it is a work of Giovanni Battista Salvi, better known by the name of the city of his birth, Sassoferrato. The Madonna is represented during an intimate moment of prayer. The work is distinguished for its refined colour and delicacy, as well as for the precision of its design. This small canvas was made for private devotion and it belongs among that type of sacred image that was greatly valued and collected, as demonstrated by the many autograph and studio replicas that exist. Various versions of the present composition were made, of which most notable among these are those of the Museo del Prado, Madrid and the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg; others are in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, in the Pinacoteca, Perugia. Although also a highly talented portraitist, Sassoferrato, assisted by his studio, specialised in the production of devotional images that largely represent the Madonna either alone, or with the Child. This iconography, being that it was perpetuated at the height of the counter-reformation, found great success with patrons, owing to the delicacy and humanity with which the artist rendered his subject.

Sassoferrato received his earliest training from his father Tarquinio. Subsequently he moved to Rome where he was influenced by Guido Reni, Domenichino and the Carracci, although his principal source of inspiration was Raphael. Indeed, it is known that Sassoferrato made copies directly from Raphael compositions, such as his Madonna and Child in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin, which refers directly to the latter’s Madonna of the Carnations in the National Gallery, London.
Specialist: Mark MacDonnell