Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo

The painting was commissioned by the Sicilian nobleman Antonio Ruffo, who patronized van Dyck during the artist's stay in Palermo in the late summer of 1624, a period marked by a plague quarantine. Executed in oil on canvas, it depicts Saint Rosalia interceding for the city's plague-stricken inhabitants, with the port of Palermo and Monte Pellegrino visible in the background. Radiographic analysis has revealed that van Dyck reused the support, uncovering an earlier self-portrait sketch beneath the surface.

The work remained in private hands until it entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1871, having previously been owned by William T. Blodgett and Thomas Emmerson.

Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo has been held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1871. It was an early purchase, and curators initially misidentified it as an Assumption of the Virgin. As of 2020 the work was on view at the museum. An undated copy, generally regarded as autograph, is recorded at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Painted in Palermo during the late summer of 1624, the work belongs to a cluster of Saint Rosalia compositions Van Dyck produced while the city was under quarantine, and he revisited the subject again in 1629 with related paintings in Vienna and Ponce. The commission is linked to the Sicilian nobleman and collector Antonio Ruffo, who also later owned Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer and patronized Matthias Stom, situating Van Dyck within a trans-Mediterranean network of seventeenth-century patronage. Classified within the Baroque movement and executed in oil on canvas, the painting entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1871 as an early acquisition, where curators initially misidentified it as an Assumption of the Virgin.

Technical analysis using neutron autoradiography has since revealed that Van Dyck reused a canvas that had previously carried a sketch, probably for a self-portrait, adding a layer of studio practice to the work's art-historical profile. An undated, likely autograph copy is held by the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Since its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1871, the painting has remained a touchstone of van Dyck's Sicilian period and a focal point of the museum's early European holdings. Misattributed on entry as an Assumption of the Virgin, its true subject, Saint Rosalia's intercession during the 1624 Palermo plague, was re-established through later scholarship. Technical studies using neutron autoradiography revealed a reused support bearing a preliminary self-portrait by the artist, underscoring the work's layered creative process.

A near-contemporary autograph copy now in Munich's Alte Pinakothek attests to the composition's reception and dissemination. The painting also anchors van Dyck's broader Rosalia series of 1624–25, linking it to later treatments such as the 1629 Vienna Coronation and the Ponce version, thereby shaping interpretations of plague iconography in Baroque art.

Anthony van Dyck's 1624 oil painting, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, depicts the patron saint of Palermo appealing for divine intervention during a devastating plague. This significant work, executed in oil, is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it has been part of the collection since 1871. The composition captures a moment of spiritual solace amidst widespread suffering.