Art Institute of Chicago

Saint Catherine

Jean Bellegambe (French, c. 1470–c. 1535)LinkedCulture matchlcp-8f9333a0db8b

Date: c. 1520
Medium: Oil on panel
Culture: France
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 100346

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

Jean Bellegambe depicted Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara wearing luxury fashions from his own time. Saint Catherine—identifiable by the sword with which she was martyred and the wheel on which she was tortured—wears her sleeves slit at the forearms, revealing puffs of fine white linen. Her crown, decorated with fleurs-de-lis, and red cape, lined with spotted ermine, were fashionable among the 16th-century French monarchy and highlight her status as a princess. Saint Barbara, seated in front of the tower where her father locked her away from suitors, wears the popular French hood attached to a red-velvet caul over her hair, her sleeves netted and tiered. The saints’ attributes and finery made their identity and status legible to churchgoers, helping to inspire their piety.

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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: George F. Harding Collection
Provenance: Achillito Chiesa, Milan, by 1925; sold, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, part I, Nov. 27, 1925, no. 42, to Harding; George F. Harding, Jr. (d. 1939), Chicago; bequeathed to the George F. Harding Museum, Chicago; offered for sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Dec. 2, 1976, no. 263, withdrawn; ownership transferred to the AIC, 1982; accessioned, 1983.3