When plague struck Palermo in 1624, the city’s prayers turned to its patroness, Saint Rosalie, whose relics were said to have miraculously halted the epidemic. During this crisis, Anthony van Dyck—then newly arrived in Sicily—painted several images of the saint, including Saint Rosalie Crowned with Roses by Two Angels. The urgency of the moment is reflected in the speed with which Van Dyck produced these works: eyewitnesses record that he painted “with great devotion and haste, as the city suffered.” This painting is one of at least five versions Van Dyck created in Palermo that year, each capturing the city’s desperate hope for deliverance. Van Dyck fixes the scene at the instant two angels, radiant and youthful, lower a garland of roses onto the kneeling Rosalie’s golden hair.

The saint, draped in rough-hewn robes, turns her gaze heavenward in rapt humility, her hands crossed over her breast. The roses symbolize both purity and the crown of martyrdom, while the rocky grotto setting alludes to the cave on Monte Pellegrino where her relics were discovered. Van Dyck’s soft, silvery light bathes Rosalie’s face, separating her from the shadowed earth below and suggesting her ascent to sainthood.

Unlike Caravaggio’s earthier saints, Van Dyck’s Rosalie is touched by grace, her features delicate and uplifted, her sanctity revealed through gentle illumination rather than drama. The exact patron of this painting is unknown, but it was almost certainly commissioned by a local noble or church official seeking to honor the saint during the plague. After its creation, the painting remained in Sicily for centuries, part of the region’s visual memory of the epidemic. Over time, several of Van Dyck’s Rosalie paintings have been dispersed to collections in Europe and America, and scholars continue to debate the precise sequence of their creation.

Today, Saint Rosalie Crowned with Roses by Two Angels stands as a testament to Van Dyck’s brief but influential Sicilian period, when his art became inseparable from the city’s collective faith and fear.