Kalpana Kalpana (Editor)

Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael)

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Year
  
c. 1507

Artist
  
Raphael

Created
  
1508

Media
  
Oil paint

Medium
  
oil on wood

Dimensions
  
72 cm x 56 cm

Period
  
High Renaissance

Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Locations
  
National Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery, London

Similar
  
Raphael artwork, Artwork at National Gallery - London, High Renaissance artwork

History lesson saint catherine of alexandria


Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. In the painting, Catherine of Alexandria is looking upward in ecstasy and leaning on a wheel - an allusion to the breaking wheel (or Catherine wheel) of her martyrdom.

Contents

It was painted c. 1507, towards the end of Raphael's sojourn in Florence and shows the young artist in a transitional phase. The depiction of religious passion in the painting is still reminiscent of Pietro Perugino. But the graceful contrapposto of Catherine's pose is typical of the influence of Leonardo da Vinci on Raphael, and is believed to be an echo of Leonardo's lost painting Leda and the Swan.

Caravaggio saint catherine of alexandria


Painting materials

Raphael employed the usual Renaissance pigments such as natural ultramarine, madder lake, ochres and lead-tin yellow. He also mixed a special kind of finely powdered glass into several pigments to speed up the drying of the oil paints.

This picture was partially used on the cover of The Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

References

Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael) Wikipedia