Saint Catherine
(Milan? c.1485 - Milan 1532)
While the compiler of the 1693 inventory described this panel as a work by Leonardo, modern critics attribute it to an unknown painter of the Lombard school, given that it is a copy of an original by Bernardino Luini – proof of the popularity of this subject in the workshop of the Milanese artist. The painting depicts Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who shows the observer her typical iconographic attributes: a crown and a book, respectively symbolising her royalty and wisdom. The palm and the breaking wheel, meanwhile, allude to her martyrdom, which she endured for her faith in Christ.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
first half of the 16th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Salvator Rosa, 74.5 x 60 x 6 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory 1693, room III, no. 26); Inventory 1790, room IV no. 62; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 32. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 1984 - Roma, Palazzo Barberini
Conservation and Diagnostic
Work not currently exhibited
Commentary
The provenance of this painting is still unknown. It is first mentioned in the context of the Borghese Collection in 1693, when it was described as ‘a painting on canvas [sic] of three spans with St Catherine holding a book in her hand, at no. 250, with a gilded frame’. The compiler of that document ambitiously attributed the work to Leonardo da Vinci (Inv. 1693). That name was changed to Francesco Vanni in the 1790 inventory, which was repeated in both the Inventario Fidecommissario (1833) and in the profiles by Giovanni Piancastelli (1891). The attribution to the Sienese painter was, however, rejected by Adolfo Venturi (1893), who ascribed it to the ‘Lombard school’, identifying it as a copy of a Holy Martyr by Bernardino Luini.
On the occasion of the publication of the catalogue of paintings of the Galleria Borghese in 1955, Paola della Pergola ascribed the panel to a ‘follower of Bernardino Luini’. Her assessment was accepted by later critics (Vezzosi 1983; Herrmann Fiore 2006). In della Pergola’s view, the Borghese panel shows close links to the figure of the martyr in the fresco by Luini in the Sanctuary in Saronno, a sign of the great success which the prototype met with in the Lombard master’s workshop. Finally, as Alessandro Vezzosi (1983) suggested, the Saint Catherine in the Borghese Collection perhaps also derives from the painting with the same subject held at the Royal Gallery of Copenhagen – which in turn is close to other examples conserved in Hamburg, Budapest, Florence, Milan, Paris and Windsor (see Vezzosi 1983) – as well as from the Saint Catherine of Alexandria between two Small Angels, known in two versions (Mond Collection, London; Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 275;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 120;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 196;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, pp. 79-80, n. 141;
- A. Ottino Della Chiesa, Bernardino Luini, Novara 1956, p. 133;
- P. della Pergola, L’Inventario Borghese del 1693 (I), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXVI, 1964, p. 221;
- A. Vezzosi, Presenze di Leonardo e del leonardismo a Roma, in Leonardo e il leonardismo a Napoli e a Roma, catalogo della mostra (Napoli 1983, Roma 1983), a cura di A. Vezzosi, Firenze 1983, pp. 212-213, n. 476;
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Galleria Borghese Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 68.
