Art Institute of Chicago

Saint Barbara

Jean Bellegambe (French, c. 1470–c. 1535)

Date

c. 1520

Medium

Oil on panel

Culture

Belgium

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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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