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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 54:

Technical notes: The support consists of a single
piece of twill fabric with 13–14 weft threads and a 19
warp threads per square centimetre. Fragments of the
tacking edges, which have been neither grounded nor
painted, are preserved along all four edges. There is a
selvage on the right tacking edge. Cusping exists along
all four edges. The painting is in the original format but
has been lined and mounted on a non-original stretcher.
The canvas has been prepared with a brownish-red
ground that has probably been applied evenly.
The paint layer is opaque and impasto and covers the
ground completely. There is cool grey underpainting
under the flesh tones.

Red sections of Mary’s gown have a dark-red glaze
(which may be madder). The gown has been corrected in
places with an overpainted blue veil. The details have
been painted on a dry surface with lavish paint to attain
physicality in the rendering of the textiles and the sewing
basket in the foreground.

The pane of glass in the background is modelled in
white paint that has been applied thickly in circles which
adds a relief effect to the glass. The palette consists predominantly
of red and blue pigments mixed with white
and there are traces of yellow, white and earth colours.
The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1988.

Provenance: Coll. P. W. Grubb; purchased 1857; KM
1861, no. 1042; NM Cat. 1866 no. 242 (as an anonymous
Italian artist, latter half of 17th century).

Bibliography: Sander IV, p. 154, no. 1042 (as anonymous
master); Göthe 1887, p.119 (as anonymous Italian
master, 16th century); Göthe 1893, p. 150 (as anonymous
Italian master); NM Cat. 1958, p. 233 (as anonymous
Italian master, late 17th century); NM Cat. 1990, p. 61,
late 17th century.

This painting with its religious motif has been
ascribed by earlier scholars to an anonymous Italian
artist but can now be linked on stylistic grounds to the
oeuvre of Denys Calvaerts. Calvaert spent most of his
career in Italy and his works testify to his roots in contemporary
Italian art, particularly in Bologna during
the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The attribution
to Calvaert was initially proposed by Catherine Johnston
in 1988 and she also related the motif to a number
of drawings depicting the mystic marriage of St.
Catherine to the Infant Jesus by Calvaert.1 Some of
these drawings are in the Louvre’s collections2 
and one was sold in 1977 by the Karl Faber auction
house.3 There are stylistic resemblances between
these drawings and the painting in the Nationalmuseum,
which combine to strengthen the attribution to
Calvaert. This applies in particular to the physical volume
of the figures depicted, the plasticity, monumental
expression and stylised folds in the garments. In
connection with her proposed attribution, Johnston
also cited his teacher Lorenzo Sabbatini, who was for
some time a source of inspiration for Calvaert.

The motif of the mystic marriage of St. Catherine
with the Infant Jesus was a popular one in earlier art.
Cranach, Dürer, Memling, J. Provost, G. de Crayer,
Rubens, Corregio, Tintoretto and Calvaert are among
the many celebrated artists who portrayed this religious
motif.4 It can be seen in a signed painting by
Calvaert from 1590 in the Pinacoteca Capitolina in
Rome.5 This work, from 1590 is painted in accordance
with the mannerist ideals, with its elongated portrayal
of the figures and the artificiality of its palette.6 The
Nationalmuseum’s painting depicts its subjects without
distorting their proportions and with greater plas-
ticity than the work referred to, which suggests that
the Stockholm painting was made during another
period of the artist’s production than the work in
Rome. There are, however, similarities in the rendering
of the facial expressions.

According to her legend, St. Catherine of Alexandra
was of royal descent and she is mainly known for two
things, one being her attempt to convert the Emperor
Maxentius, the other her marriage to the Infant Jesus.
Her most frequent attributes are her wheel, often broken,
a sword that is linked to her attempt to convert
Maxentius as well as a ring which is connected to her
mystic marriage with the Infant Jesus. In some images
that depict the conversion scene, St. Catherine is portrayed
with a crown on her head as she tramples the
Emperor Maxentius beneath her feet. As punishment
for her attempt to convert Maxentius the legend tells
us that she was made to defend her faith in a disputation
with fifty philosophers, who she is said to have
converted. Catherine was forced, however, to cut four
of these philosophers to ribbons with the aid of a
wheel equipped with sharp spikes and knives, which
accounts for the use of a partially broken wheel as her
attribute. When Catherine was supposed to cut the
four philosophers to ribbons the legend tells us that an
angel appeared and destroyed the wheel. Catherine
was then beheaded, in 306 or 307, and died a martyr’s
death.

In the narrative of the life of St. Catherine, scene
no. 14 describes the marriage with the Infant Jesus.7
This motif is usually depicted with the Infant placing a
ring on Catherine’s finger, as it is in the painting in the
Nationalmuseum. As is customary, St. Catherine’s hair
is down, she has a crown on her head, is carrying a
palm leaf to symbolise her martyrdom and has a wheel
at her side. The Infant Jesus is naked apart from a
lightly draped veil. The Infant is seated in the lap of
the Virgin Mary and concentrating on placing the ring
on Catherine’s finger, while in the background John is
portrayed with one hand against his chest to signify
sincerity, faith and honesty and a winged angel watches
from between Catherine and the Virgin. The main
scene with St. Catherine, the Infant Jesus and the Virgin
is depicted in the foreground in a scene delimited
by a window to the left behind John and a view of a
landscape to the right. Four figures are portrayed in
the landscape, two of them in a garden surrounded by
a fence and next to a stone building. Beyond a wall, a
number of trees in leaf are depicted and the silhouette
of a mountain. There is a degree of monumentality in
the portrayal of the Virgin Mary in particular and her
garments and their folds are rendered in a stylised
manner. The motif as a whole is characterised by sincerity
and its concentration on the Infant Jesus and the
mystic marriage with the saint that finds expression in
his placing of the ring on her finger.
KS

1 See the letter from Catherine Johnston, Curator of European Art,
National Gallery of Art, Canada, to Görel Cavalli-Björkman 6/9 1988,
NM curatorial files.
2 La Sainte Famille et Sainte Catherine d’Alexandrie, Inv. no. 21 409, recto.
3 145, 26–28 May 1977, lot 56.
4 Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonograhie, 7, pp. 295–296.
5 Inv. no. 99, oil on toile, 94 x 70 cm, signed and dated “DIONISIO
CAL…1590”.
6 For details about this painting see Fiamminghi a Roma 1508–1608, Artistes
des Pays-Bas et de la Principaute de Liege a Rome a la Renaissance, Brussels,
1995, cat. no. 49, pp. 130–131.
7 Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie, 7, Rome 1974, p. 293.

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