Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena

The homonym, resolved inside one frame

Catherine of Alexandria and Catherine of Siena are the pair most often confused in this collection's subject matter, and here they appear together. That forces the attribute system to do its job at full stretch. Alexandria is given a broken wheel, a sword and a martyr's palm; Siena is given the Dominican habit, a lily and a crown of thorns. Two women, one name, and the only thing separating them is what the tradition allows each to hold. Of the 27 titles in this collection naming a Catherine, this is the one that names both.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1524 and gives the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome as its location. The dimensions are 115 x 98 cm. It is filed under group portraiture, Religion, Fantasy, and religious and mythological cultural heritage, with High Renaissance as the style and Italian as the nationality; the measured colour family is brown.

A subheading worth reporting

The record also files this work under Animal Art with Cat as a subheading. That subheading appears on 5 entries in this collection, and all 5 have a Catherine in the title. The coincidence is reported here as it stands in the record. No explanation is offered, because the record does not contain one, and an invented one would sit on this page for as long as the true fields do.