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The attribution of this painting is debated; the painter could be Charles Mellin, a student of Vouet's workshop in Rome. The closeness between the Vouet Magdalene (in the same museum) and the figure in the foreground of this allegory is strong enough to make it probable that the two figures were executed by the same hand, or at the very least by the same workshop. It could also be connected with either Simon Vouet or the anonymous "Brother of Cavalier Muti," who vanished from the Roman scene immediately after Vouet's return to France.
The subject, clearly celebrating the Barberini family, may well have been suggested by Francesco Bracciolini, the mind behind the iconographic program of the great Divine Providence vault cycle that Pietro da Cortona frescoed in the Palazzo Barberini.
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