MASP

The legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria – notably the scenes of her mystical marriage and her martyrdom – is especially evoked in the Italian and Spanish painting of the seicento. Catherine is said to have been an extremely beautiful young girl from Alexandria, who spoke out against pagan idolatry because of the persecutions against Christians that took place under the rule of emperor Maxentius, in the beginning of the 4th century. Challenged by fifty pagan philosophers, she counters their arguments one by one, which causes the emperor to sentence them all to death by fire. As the saint refuses to marry him, the emperor sentences her to prison, where she is not only miraculously fed by a pigeon, but also meets Christ in a vision. The first attempt to torture her on a spiked wheel fails because the wheel falls apart, killing several spectators, but leaving the saint unharmed. The miracle causes the conversion of more than two hundred soldiers, who were immediately decapitated. Finally, the saint herself was decapitated, and milk, not blood, gushed from her veins. Her body was taken to Mount Sinai, where the Convent of Saint Catherine was to be erected. The painting depicts the subject with her main attributes, the imperial crown, the sword and the smashed wheel. The original destination of the painting is unknown, and according to Knoedler’s information, referred to in the museum’s epistle records, it was commissioned by the Convent of Saint Francis, in Seville. If this is the case, this commission was obviously not the same as that of 1645, given the advanced stylistic characteristics of the work. In 1930, Longhi discovers the work in the Piscicelli Collection, in Rome, from where, most likely thanks to his recommendation, it is transferred to the Contini-Bonacossi collection in Florence, to be shown, still in 1930, in the exhibit Gli antichi pittori spagnoli della collezione Contini-Bonacossi, in Rome. In the catalogue of this exhibition, written by Longhi, with foreword by August L. Mayer, the historian describes the work as follows: “the martyr saint defeats the devil disguised as a pagan idol. In the background, the martyrdom of the saint is depicted. It is surely subsequent to the preceding number [i.e., 1650-1652] because of the more relaxed style and a tendency towards violet combinations, representative of the Venetian manner of impasto and glazing. Typical of the seicento is, on the other hand, the serene expression of ecstasy. It is closely comparable to works such as the Saint Catherine of the collection of the duke of Wellington, in London, and therefore datable to c.1655”.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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