The Roman provenance of the present picture is significant as the artist may have spent as many as four separate periods of activity there, all in the first half of his career. Certainly in Rome in 1602 as the pupil of Jacob de Hase and for two or three years from the end of 1628, he is presumably also the 'Theodoro Vallonio' recorded in the parish of S. Lorenzo in Lucina in 1607-8, and stylistic grounds suggest a further visit in the late 1610s.

A version with minor variations is in the church at Gergy, Saône-et-Loire (D. Lavalle, Sur quelques peintures italiennes du XVIIe siècle conservées dans les églises de province, in the catalogue of the exhibition Seicento, le siècle de Caravage dans les collections françaises, Grand Palais, Paris, 11 Oct. 1988-2 Jan. 1989, p. 59, fig. 29, as 'Luca Ferrari?')