Saint Rosalia

The work is an oil on canvas painting executed circa 1625 in Palermo, Sicily. It depicts Saint Rosalia receiving a crown of flowers from a cherub, shown in three-quarter length with a skull held in her left hand and her right hand resting on her chest, covering her red hair. The composition employs a vertical format and combines the influence of Pietro Novelli with Van Dyck’s characteristic naturalism. The painting was originally owned by Giovan Francesco Serra di Cassano, acquired by Philip IV of Spain through the Viceroy of Naples in 1664, and has been part of the Museo del Prado collection since then.

The technique utilizes oil paint applied to a canvas support, with a restrained palette and delicate modeling that emphasizes the saint’s ecstatic expression and the symbolic skull as a memento mori. Formal qualities include a balanced composition, chiaroscuro lighting, and a refined rendering of fabric and hair that reflect the transitional style between the High Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Saint Rosalia is an oil on canvas painted by Anthony van Dyck around 1625 in Palermo, Sicily, during a period when the artist was confined in the city by an outbreak of plague. The work was originally owned by Giovan Francesco Serra di Cassano. It subsequently entered the Spanish royal collection when Philip IV of Spain acquired it in 1664 through his Viceroy of Naples, Gaspar de Bracamonte. The painting is now held by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where it remains part of the collection. The canvas belongs to a group of related Saint Rosalia compositions Van Dyck produced in Palermo in the mid-1620s, sharing its basic arrangement with three companion versions now located in Palermo, London, and Houston. All four works were loaned to the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2011-2012. The painting is held in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. It was originally owned by Giovan Francesco Serra di Cassano before being purchased by Philip IV of Spain in 1664 through his Viceroy of Naples, Gaspar de Bracamonte. In 2011-2012, the work was loaned to the Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of an exhibition that included other versions of Saint Rosalia from the same series.

The *Saint Rosalia* of c.1625 by Anthony van Dyck emerged during the artist’s enforced stay in Palermo, where the mid-1620s plague shaped a distinct group of works on the subject. While aligned with compositions repeated in Palermo, London, and Houston, van Dyck’s version shifts from full-length to three-quarter-length and introduces a skull in the saint’s left hand, sharpening its memento mori resonance. The painting entered the Spanish royal collection in 1664 via Viceroy Gaspar de Bracamonte’s acquisition for Philip IV and is now in the Museo del Prado. A 2011-2012 loan to Dulwich Picture Gallery situated it within a broader reconsideration of van Dyck’s Sicilian period and its stylistic exchanges with Pietro Novelli.

The painting entered the Spanish royal collection when Philip IV acquired it in 1664 through his Viceroy of Naples, and it has remained in the Museo del Prado ever since, forming part of the museum’s permanent holdings. It is one of a series of Saint Rosalia works van Dyck painted during the 1620s Palermo plague; these works shared a common composition and influenced the local painter Pietro Novelli. In 2011‑2012 the Prado loaned the canvas, together with the three related paintings now in Palermo, London and Houston, to the Dulwich Picture Gallery for a special exhibition, underscoring its continuing scholarly and public relevance.