Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo

The young Palermitan saint, shown against the clouds that carried her plague-dispelling relics through the city, gazes toward the heavenly light as putti bear her aloft. Anthony van Dyck painted the altarpiece in 1624, during his sojourn in Palermo at the height of a devastating plague outbreak, and the picture became his most celebrated work in Sicily. It is one of the treasures of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.