Oil on canvas. Provenance: - Private collection, Madrid. Bibliography and exhibitions: Praying “Virgin. Giovanni Battista Salvi, Il Sassoferrato”, López de Aragón 20 years in Maastricht, TEFAF Maastricht, 2005, no. cat. 42. Giovanni Battista Salvi, better known as “Il Sassoferrato” because of the small town where he was born, was an Italian Baroque painter in whose works he managed to combine two trends: Bolognese classicism and Tenebrism with Caravaggesque roots. Initially trained in the workshop of his father, the painter Tarquinio Salvi, he completed his training in Rome together with one of the great figures of the moment: Domenichino. In Rome he soon achieved great fame as a painter and gained a wide clientele thanks to his devising a pleasant and friendly type of devotional painting. This was mainly focused on the creation of a series of idealized images of the Virgin, which found their source of inspiration in the great painters of the 16th century, such as Perugino or Raphael, continuing in this way with the Bolognese classicist current, but which in its Once they were covered with a certain contemporaneity thanks to the use of a powerful chiaroscuro of Caravaggesque roots. A representative example of his production is this Virgin in prayer, of which different versions and an innumerable number of copies are known, made both in his time as in later centuries, that prove the enormous success that his compositions had for adapting perfectly to the provisions of the Council of Trent regarding sacred images. The endearing image of Mary appears with her hands together as a sign of prayer and with her gaze directed downwards as a sign of recollection. Her figure emerges from a timeless neutral background, of peace and silence, thanks to powerful lighting that completely models her classic volumes and makes the colors of her clothing vibrate. In this color palette, very much indebted to that of Domenichino, the lead white of the tunic takes on a special role, which covers almost the entire oval of the face, giving it greater luminosity, and the powerful and luxurious ultramarine blue of the mantle. Measurements : 46.5 x 36 cm.