St. Catherine of Alexandria

Description The half-length figure of the saint, her head, with coronet and veil, surrounded by a nimbus. A tiny cross hangs on her forehead. She carries the palm of a martyr and the sword of her execution, and she wears on her left hand the ring of her mystical marriage with Christ. She is dressed in a mantle trimmed with fur and a belted gown, with a purse hanging at her right, and is adorned with a necklace and earrings of pearls. Before her is the broken rim of the toothed wheel of her torture. The black background is powdered with stars. At the base is a tablet inscribed in gilding S. CATHARINA, and the monogram IL, with a fleur-de-lys between the two letters.

Provenance Montagu Edmond Parker [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Albert Edward Parker, third Earl of Morley, [date of acquisition unknown] by inheritance; Sale, London, July 13, 1897, lot 47; George Robinson Harding, London [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, [date of acquisition unknown] by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters