Art Institute of Chicago

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine

Giorgio Ghisi (Italian, 1520-1582)

Date

1555/57

Medium

Engraving in black on cream laid paper

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Giorgio Ghisi’s devotional print is influenced by the style of Fontainebleau artists. Ghisi may have known Francesco Primaticcio when they were both working in Mantua, and adapted his sculptural engraving style to the painter’s languid elegance. Primaticcio is not known for religious scenes; the original painting, now lost, would have been an unusual part of his oeuvre. The scene shows the infant Christ putting a ring on the finger of Saint Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century Dominican tertiary nun who received the stigmata as part of her calling to become a bride of Christ.

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