Continental School (Late 18th or 19th Century)
17" x 12 ¾"
Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Oil on canvas, not signed, in gilt frame, overall 22 ½" x 18".
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a virgin martyr traditionally placed in the early fourth century, though no contemporary evidence for her exists and her cult first appears in the Greek East around the eighth or ninth century. According to her legend, she was a highly educated young noblewoman, sometimes described as a princess, who converted to Christianity and confronted the emperor (usually Maxentius, sometimes Maximinus Daia) over his persecution of Christians. The emperor summoned fifty philosophers to refute her, but she converted them all, and they were burned for it. She was then imprisoned, and during that time she converted the empress, the officer Porphyrius, and two hundred soldiers, all of whom were executed. She was sentenced to be broken on a spiked wheel, which shattered when she touched it, and she was then beheaded. Some versions say milk rather than blood flowed from the wound. Her patronages include philosophers, scholars, students, preachers, lawyers, unmarried women, wheelwrights, millers, and spinners.
In art, she is usually depicting wearing a crown and an elaborate dress to indicate her royal birth, and she typically has long loose hair as a mark of virginity. Her principal attribute is the spiked wheel, often shown broken, and she frequently holds the sword of her beheading and a martyr's palm.
Condition: Relined, some spots of inpainting visible under UV light, overall good.
17" x 12 ¾"
Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Oil on canvas, not signed, in gilt frame, overall 22 ½" x 18".
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a virgin martyr traditionally placed in the early fourth century, though no contemporary evidence for her exists and her cult first appears in the Greek East around the eighth or ninth century. According to her legend, she was a highly educated young noblewoman, sometimes described as a princess, who converted to Christianity and confronted the emperor (usually Maxentius, sometimes Maximinus Daia) over his persecution of Christians. The emperor summoned fifty philosophers to refute her, but she converted them all, and they were burned for it. She was then imprisoned, and during that time she converted the empress, the officer Porphyrius, and two hundred soldiers, all of whom were executed. She was sentenced to be broken on a spiked wheel, which shattered when she touched it, and she was then beheaded. Some versions say milk rather than blood flowed from the wound. Her patronages include philosophers, scholars, students, preachers, lawyers, unmarried women, wheelwrights, millers, and spinners.
In art, she is usually depicting wearing a crown and an elaborate dress to indicate her royal birth, and she typically has long loose hair as a mark of virginity. Her principal attribute is the spiked wheel, often shown broken, and she frequently holds the sword of her beheading and a martyr's palm.
Condition: Relined, some spots of inpainting visible under UV light, overall good.
