Provenance: Purchased by the present owner's father in Pavia, 1952

Notes: We are grateful to Professor Francesco Frangi for confirming the attribution on the basis of a colour photograph. He suggests a date of the late 1610s towards the end of the artist's sojourn in Rome.

Little is known of Vermiglio's life but he is recorded as being active in Rome by 1604 when he was in the studio of an Adriano de Monteleone. He remained in the city until about 1620, by which time he had returned to his native Piedmont. Whilst in Rome his work was profoundly influenced by Caravaggio but after his return North and later in his career a softer, more Reni-like approach is discernible. The present painting is comparable to Vermiglio's Saint James the Greater now in the Pinacoteca Repossi, Chiari, which has been dated to very shortly after his return to Piedmont.

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