19th Century Oil on Canvas Madonna in Prayer, in the Manner of Sassoferrato

A half-length Madonna in prayer, hands crossed at the breast, eyes lowered, painted in oil on canvas and set within a carved giltwood frame with foliate corner ornament.

The composition follows one of the most reproduced devotional images in Western painting — the praying Virgin in blue mantle and rose robe, popularized by Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato, and copied by workshops and drawing academies for the better part of two centuries. This is one of those descendants: painted with real feeling in the face and hands, and rather less interest in the background, which dissolves into a warm gold aureole and then into shadow.

The frame has lost gilding along the outer moulding and at the corners, exposing the red bole and gesso beneath. It reads as age rather than neglect, and we would leave it exactly as it is.