Saint Catherine
Lorenzo Lotto·1522
Historical Context
Lotto's Saint Catherine of Alexandria from 1522 depicts the martyr-scholar with her attributes — the spiked wheel of her torture and the palm of martyrdom — in a devotional panel painted during his Marche period. Catherine was the patron of philosophers and students, celebrated for having debated and converted fifty pagan scholars before her execution; her presence in Lotto's output reflects the learned clerical and humanist culture of the provincial centers he served. His treatment of the saint shows the warm Venetian coloring he had absorbed in his youth combined with the psychological directness that distinguished his devotional figures from the more idealized approach of his contemporaries.
Technical Analysis
Lotto's oil on panel demonstrates his distinctive color sense with rich, warm hues and the penetrating characterization that sets his religious paintings apart from the more idealized Venetian tradition.
Provenance
Leuchtenberg Collection, Munich and Leningrad, by 1843;[1] sold 1933 through (Heinemann Galerie, Munich) to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome);[2] sold 1933 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] The painting was catalogued in 1843 and 1852 by J. D. Passavant as part of the Leuchtenberg collection. [2] Heinemann Galerie no. 18964 (sold paintings card; copy in NGA curatorial files). [3] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV - XVI Century_, London, 1968: 68. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1809.
