The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1800 - 1899
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
273 x 229 mm (10 3/4 x 9 in)
Order this imageCollection
Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire
NT 414242
Caption
The visual depiction of the mystic betrothal of the Infant Jesus to Catherine came from words given to her in The Golden Legend by Jacopo de Voragine in the 13th century. Here the Christ Child, sitting in the Virgin’s lap in a hilly landscape setting, is giving St Catherine a ring, guided by his mother. She is kneeling, holding her martyr’s palm, and the spiked wheel on which she was tortured, and the sword with which she was finally beheaded by the pagan Emperor Maxentius around AD310, lie between them.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534). The Christ Child is sitting in the centre on the lap of the Virgin who is seated on the left, he looks up at her as he places a ring on the finger of Catherine of Alexandria, kneeling on the right. The Virgin is dressed in red with a blue cloak, St Catherine in yellow with a with a white cloak, she holds a martyr palm in the crook of her right arm and hold out her left hand to the Christ Child, a sword, an attribute of her martydom, lies on the ground in front of St Catherine, there is a distant rocky landscape with blue sky on the right. The original painting, of around 1520/22, is in the Galleria Nazionale di Capidimonte, Naples. Other versions are in the Glasgow Museums (127), Belton House NT 436016 and Stourhead, possibly by Antonio Cavallucci, NT 732135.
Provenance
Bequeathed by Robert S. Watney (d. 1981)
Credit line
Hanbury Hall, The Vernon Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Bartolomeo Schedone (Formigine 1578 – Parma 1615), artist
References
Humfrey 2012 Peter Humfrey, The Italian Paintings, Glasgow Museums, 2012, no. 37