PROBABLY ITALIAN, LATE 17TH OR EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The beautiful Saint Rose (1586-1617) was born in Lima, Perú, where she lead an increasingly pious childhood, entering the Dominican order at the age of twenty, much to her mother's annoyance. Saint Rose modelled herself on Saint Catherine of Siena and had several visions, including a mystic marriage with the infant Christ, shown in the present relief. She is known for wearing rose crowns with the thorns digging into her skin and it is this crown that identifies her among the Dominican saints. Saint Rose was canonized by Clement X in 1672 and was proclaimed the patron saint of the Spanish speaking Americas, the Philippines and the West Indies. An outpost of Dominicans, calling themselves the order of Saint Rose in Flanders, was established in 1680, making it likely that the present relief, which appears stylistically to be Flemish, was made for an adherent of the order in that part of the world some time in the late 17th or early 18th century.