This beautiful statuette of ‘St Rose of Lima’ is by the Maltese sculptor Melchiorre Cafà (1636–1667). He worked in Rome, rivalling the greatest Baroque sculptors of the time, including Gianlorenzo Bernini, before an untimely death. Cafà made the marble sculpture of St Rose of Lima in 1665 to commemorate the Beatification of this first female saint of the New World. The sculpture was displayed in St Peter’s Rome to much acclaim before it was shipped to Lima, Peru. It is now in the museum of the convent of Santo Domingo de Lima. The marble statue depicts St Rose of Lima just at the moment of her death. She looks like she is falling into peaceful slumber. An angel gently lifts a veil to cover her. Melchiorre Cafà also produced a number of smaller bronze versions of the sculpture to be given as gifts, the most beautiful of which, made of gilt bronze and silver, is now in the MUŻA collection.
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