Artifact World Gallery
Get the iOS app

Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo by Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck · 1624-01-01

The Met acquired this painting in 1871 and promptly catalogued it as an Assumption of the Virgin. For years, no one questioned the label.

The clue was always there. In the background sits the port of Palermo, with the unmistakable silhouette of Monte Pellegrino rising behind it. This is not a generic heaven. It is a specific city under siege, and the woman at the center is its patron saint, Rosalie, interceding during the plague of 1624.

Van Dyck was inside that city when he painted it. He arrived in Palermo in the spring of 1624, and by summer the plague had arrived with a ship from Tunis. The city quarantined. Trapped there, the 25-year-old Flemish painter received a commission to produce images of Saint Rosalie, whose relics had recently been rediscovered on Monte Pellegrino. He made six paintings of her in a matter of months, and this one entered the Met's collection as a founding work, misidentification and all.

The copy in Munich's Alte Pinakothek is believed to be by Van Dyck's own hand. He thought the composition worth repeating. The Met got the original, even if they did not know its name.

Details

They were wrong.
They were wrong.
Not the Virgin. Saint Rosalie, pleading for her city.
Not the Virgin. Saint Rosalie, pleading for her city.
Van Dyck painted this during quarantine. The plague had locked Palermo down.
Van Dyck painted this during quarantine. The plague had locked Palermo down.
He made six paintings of her inside the besieged city.
He made six paintings of her inside the besieged city.
This large foreground cherub points or gestures downward toward the plague-stricken city below , a compositional arrow linking the celestial scene to the human suffering it addresses.
This large foreground cherub points or gestures downward toward the plague-stricken city below , a compositional arrow linking the celestial scene to the human suffering it addresses.
Transcript

The Met acquired this painting in 1871. Their curators were sure it was an Assumption of the Virgin. They were wrong. Look at the background. That is the port of Palermo. Not the Virgin. Saint Rosalie, pleading for her city. Van Dyck painted this during quarantine. The plague had locked Palermo down. He made six paintings of her inside the besieged city. A museum's first mistake turned into one of its early treasures.