Saint Catherine

A bare title, and a wheel it does not mention

The record gives only Saint Catherine. Two saints answer to it, and their attributes are the entire means of telling them apart: a broken wheel, a sword and a palm for Catherine of Alexandria; the Dominican habit, a lily and a crown of thorns for Catherine of Siena. 27 titles in this collection name a Catherine, and this one is among those that decline to say which. The catalogue does not settle it, and neither does this page.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the panel to 1527 and gives the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg as its location. The dimensions are 68 x 59 cm — small, and close to square. The style is High Renaissance and the nationality Italian; the measured colour family is red.

An odd line in the category field

Alongside female portraiture and Religion, the record files this work under Landscapes and under Animal Art with Cat as a subheading. That subheading appears on 5 entries in the whole collection, and every one of the five has a Catherine in its title. The pattern is reported here as it stands in the record, without an explanation, because the record does not offer one and inventing one would be worse than leaving it visible.