Saint Rosalia with Angels Oil on canvas 27 3/4 x 21 7/8 inches (70.5 x 55.5 cm); framed size 35 3/8 x 25 1/2 inches Inscribed 'Migl Cabrera Pinx...' lower left; applied verso: 'Schmidt’ St Rosalia (1130-1166) is said to have descended from Charlemagne. She retired to live as a hermit in a cave. Her impulse was to live a life of intense penitence. One of the attributes referring to her ascetic life is the scourge that she holds in her proper left hand. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote "I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ." In 1624, as a horrible plague devastated Palermo in Sicily, the saint is said to have appeared to a sick woman and to a hunter, instructing them where to find her remains, and to take them to Palermo and through the city in procession. The plague ceased. Her spirit is still invoked against plague and earthquakes on July 15 and Sept. 14, when pilgrims walk barefoot to the cave on Mount Pellegrino where her remains were discovered. The Jesuits introduced her cult in Rome in 1627, and it extended to France and the Low Countries. Pope Urban VIII introduced her name to the Roman Martyrology. The saint is sometimes dressed, as in the present painting, in the rustic garb (the ‘poor tunic’, or hair shirt) of a pilgrim. Her crown can be composed of roses (as here) or roses and lilies. Here she carries a shepherd’s crook, and one of the angels carries the lilies, a symbol of hope. Here Miguel Cabrera has painted a most graceful composition; the angels flank Rosalia in a kind of dance.
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