Attributed to Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna 1638-1665)

The Allegory of Charity is close, both in style and composition, to a drawing now in the Louvre (inv. 9013 bis), which is a preparatory study for Sirani's Portrait of Anna Maria Ranuzzi Marsigli as Charity; the finished painting, dated 1665, is in the Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna (Elisabetta Sirani: 'pittrice eroina' 1638-1665, exhib. cat., Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, 2004-5, pp. 204-5). Anna Maria Ranuzzi's pose in the finished painting is closer to that in the present drawing than it is to that in the Louvre sheet, while the present drawing also foreshadows the final pose of the putto at upper right, who leans forward in the painting to offer cherries to the seated child.