St Catherine

Andrea di Bartolo was a Sienese painter active at the end of the fourteenth century, son of the more famous Bartolo di Fredi, continuing the family workshop's production of refined Gothic altarpieces. This image of St Catherine at the Lindenau Museum likely formed part of a polyptych, with the saint identifiable by her wheel and palm of martyrdom. The late Trecento Sienese school maintained remarkably high standards of craftsmanship even as artistic leadership in Italy shifted toward Florence and northern Italy.

Painted in egg tempera on gold ground panel with delicate punch-work in the halo, the figure displays the elongated proportions and refined linear drapery characteristic of late Sienese Gothic painting. Andrea di Bartolo's palette favors soft pinks, blues, and greens with careful gold highlighting.