The Guardian Angel
by CORTONA, Pietro da, Oil on canvas, 225 x 143 cm
The picture was kept in the museum at Viterbo with an attribution to Romanelli until the Second World War. Documentable as an autograph work of Cortona’s, the painting was commissioned directly from the painter by Pope Alexander VII in 1656, along with a pendant of St Michael the Archangel. The painter presented the two pendant pictures to Alexander VII when the pope named him to a papal knighthood. The pope returned the favour by presenting Cortona with a gold chain.
The work has had a good critical fortune, and was copied by both Gaulli and Maratta. A drawing of the subject by the former is conserved in Berlin, while a print is also known to have been cut after the painting. An autograph drawing by Cortona, a study for this work, survives in the Royal Library at Windsor.