Saint Catherine before the Pope at Avignon

Saint Catherine before the Pope at Avignon from 1460 depicts an episode from the life of Catherine of Siena, the city's most famous saint, who journeyed to the papal court in 1376 to persuade Gregory XI to return to Rome. Giovanni di Paolo painted extensively on the life of Catherine for Sienese institutions that cherished her memory. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays brilliant, jewel-like color, gold grounds, lyrical figure types of Gothic grace, perspectival experiments that create strange compressed spaces, intense narrative invention.

The scene is organized as a formal audience, with the architectural setting of the papal palace rendered in Giovanni di Paolo's characteristically inventive spatial arrangement.