16th Century, By Paolo Veronese, Mystical Marriage Of Saint Catherine

16th century, by Paolo Veronese

Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine

Oil on canvas, cm 76 x 80

With frame cm 97.5 x 102.5

The painting in question is a take of a famous painting by Paolo Caliari, known as Paolo Veronese (Venice, 1528 - Venice, 1588), now preserved at the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, once placed on the high altar of the church of S. Caterina. The work was made by the great Venetian master around 1571 and was already particularly admired in ancient times, as shown by the engraving that Agostino Caracci made in 1582 and the words of praise in the Carta del Navegar Pitoresco (1660) of Boschini, who thus celebrates its chromatic splendor: "If you can say that 'I Pitor, to make them affected, / gold the habia kneads pearls, and rubies, / and emeralds, and saphiles more than fine, / and very pure diamonds, and perfect". The scene represented is the mystical marriage between Catherine of Alexandria and Christ, an iconography that was born in the fifteenth century and in many cases preferred to the more bloody martyrdom of the saint with the wheel. In the version of the Veronese, the sacred scene seems to take on the appearance of a luxurious sixteenth-century festival: Saint Catherine is dressed according to the fashion of the time, with lavish clothes and precious jewels, and approaches the Virgin, surrounded by angels musicians and curious observers.

Our painter, admiring the Veronese, selects only a part of the large altarpiece, placing at the center of the observer’s attention, the exchange of the ring between the child Christ and the saint, arranged along the diagonal of the staircase, on which the whole composition is dynamically built.