Francesco Zahra's 'Madonna del Pilar' at St Peter's Monastery in Mdina

Abstract

This article examines the commissioning of a painting of the Madonna del Pilar by Francesco Zahra in the 1740s for the chapel of St Peter's Monastery in Mdina, Malta, and highlights the role of women as patrons of the arts. In early modern Malta, as elsewhere in Europe, women acted as patrons of artistic works in churches. They commissioned, sponsored or donated paintings, silverware, tapestries and other precious objects and decorations. The role of women in creating this religious and artistic heritage has not been widely studied. Despite the strict enclosure, or ‘clausura’, imposed at female monasteries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, cloistered nuns also engaged in art patronage.