Religious Art »
Provincial Icon of St Katharine of Alexandria
Ref: 1859
We see a lot of religious paintings and paintings of all kinds but good ones stand out, this is an attractive work of popular religious art, sweet but not saccharine indicating an 18th century or earlier date, an oil on canvas of St Katherine. She was a popular saint amongst the peasantry of Central and Eastern Europe in that she was quite a romantic almost fairy tale figure, the princess of a pagan king of Alexandria in the early years of Christianity, said to be beautiful, pure, a notable scholar, a precursor of Joan of Arc she refused noble offers of marriage claiming she was ‘wedded’ to Christ, she was later tortured and beheaded for her beliefs. The sword in the foreground forms part of the repertoire of her symbolism, the instrument of her death, the wheel on which she was tortured is absent, but we see the crown and royal robes indicating her royal status. The flowing fair untied hair is typical, so too the church standing for her devotion to the Church, the lily standing for her virginity, and the book standing for her scholarly reputation.The landscape setting and colouring is attractive harking back to the Renaissance and suggests this folk painting like many might be a watered down later “translation” of great works, a work like Hans Memling’s “Mystic Marriage of St Katharine”, for example, which would be known through fame and copies and somehow be part of the tradition or repertoire of a local artist.
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