Saint Catharine of Alexandria

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, painted in 1619 and held by the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection in Zurich, is an early work — painted the year before Strozzi produced the Strada Nuova Madonna and Child — and shows him already in command of the warm, characterful style that would define his career. Catherine — the learned virgin martyr who defeated fifty philosophers in debate — was a favourite subject of Catholic devotional painting and appeared frequently in altarpieces and private devotional panels. Her attributes — the palm of martyrdom, the broken wheel, the sword — give the painter both compositional and symbolic material. The Bührle Collection, rebuilt after significant restitution activity, holds important Baroque works within a context of broader European art from Impressionism to the Old Masters.

Canvas with the warm, direct characterisation of Strozzi's early Genoese period. Catherine's face is given psychological individuality — neither the blank idealism of Mannerism nor the theatrical pathos of later Baroque, but a direct and confident presence. Her attributes are painted with the material precision of a still-life trained hand.