Adam's HOMAN POTTERTON A LIFETIME OF COLLECTING 7th September 2021

80 75 ITALIAN SCHOOL (17TH CENTURY) Saint Agnes of Rome Oil on canvas, 46 x 36cm (18 x 14”) € 1,000 - 2,000 According to tradition, Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility, born in AD 291 and raised in an early Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, on 21 January 304. Saint Agnes’ bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed her tomb. Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone in Rome’s Piazza Navona. Since the Middle Ages, Saint Agnes has traditionally been depicted as a young woman with her long hair down, with a lamb, the symbol of both her virginal innocence and her name, and a sword together with the palm branch being an attribute of her martyrdom.