What subjects turn up most often?

The Madonna and Child leads by a distance. "Madonna" appears in 21 titles, "child" in 15, "mary" in 13 and "virgin" in 9, and the subject is rising as a share of live stock. Saints come next, with John the Baptist recurring, then Christ. Portraits of clergymen, cardinals, popes and Reformation figures form a steady seam of their own.

Why do so many listings say "after" or "school of"?

Because most of these pictures are unsigned. Workshops across Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Central Europe turned out devotional images in quantity from the 16th to 18th centuries, including copies and variants of celebrated compositions. So the catalogue language describes a relationship instead of an author. "School" in 28 titles, "after" in 23, "follower" in 9.

How old are these pieces?

The 18th and 19th centuries are close to level, with 30 and 29 listings, and the 17th century just behind on 26. Seven are dated to the 16th century, and two carry the blunt label "Before 1700". Only thirty listings give a clean year. The rest are century labels, often hedged with "early", "late" or a slash such as "17th/18th". Twentieth-century entries are few.

Are prints part of this category?

Yes, roughly a fifth of it. Engravings, chromolithograph devotional triptychs, mezzotints, etchings, an oleograph and a lithograph, plus pastel, watercolour and pen and ink work. They sit at the lower end of the range. Cheap printed devotional images spread the same imagery into ordinary households from the 18th century onward.

What is reverse glass painting?

An image worked on the back of a sheet of glass and viewed through it, so the artist paints the details first and the background last. It's a small persistent thread on Sellingantiques: a St Peter picture, a pair of Georgian glass paintings and two 18th-century reverse-glass mezzotints.

How many come up for sale?

Around sixteen pieces a year. Sixty different dealers have listed one, so almost every seller who handles the category has handled just one or two. That spread is why the descriptions vary so much in the detail they carry.

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Antique Religious Art

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Framed images of Christian subjects, painted or printed, made for churches, chapels and private devotion, and catalogued as often by school and prototype as by artist.