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Scenes from the Life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria
This three-part panel was originally part of a large altarpiece whose central image probably represented Saint Catherine with the wheel of her martyrdom. The left-hand panel depicts her vision of the Madonna and Child: the Christ Child did not find Catherine worthy because she wasn't baptised and refused to look at her. The middle scene illustrates her baptism. The right-hand panel presents her second vision of the Madonna and Child: as a baptised Christian she is now worthy in Christ's eyes and she is joined to him in a mystic marriage.
The delicate figures reflect the continuing influence of the International Gothic style. Swabian painters of the following generation developed a more harsly realistic style. Other fragments from the same altarpiece are now in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
Mortimer Brandt, Baltimore, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1988, by gift.
Geographies
Germany, Swabia (Place of Origin)
Measurements
framed: 24 3/4 x 63 3/4 x 2 3/16 in. (62.8 x 162 x 5.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Brandt, 1988
Location in Museum
Centre Street: Third Floor: 15th-Century Art of Northern Europe
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.2638