Saint Carlo Borromeo visiting victims of the Plague

The composition of this small painting on copper is closely related to Orazio Borgianni's altarpiece in the Collegio dei Padri Mercedari in Rome (G. Papi, Orazio Borgianni, Soncino, 1993, pp. 123-125, cat. 35, illus. in colour XLVIII-XLIX), though there are numerous differences in the staffage and architecture. Borgianni planned his composition carefully for there is an oil sketch by him, en grisaille, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg. Borgianni's picture probably dates from the second decade of the seventeenth century and was originally painted for the church of Sant'Adriano (destroyed in 1936), where it would have been accessible to artists to copy. The distinctly northern quality of this copper suggests it is by a Dutch artist working in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century, most likely one of the Bamboccianti - a group of northern painters specialising in scenes of everyday life. It seems particularly close to Andries Both (c.1612-1642), elder brother of Jan Both, who is recorded in Rome from the mid-1630s until 1641. We are grateful to Ludovica Trezzani for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.