Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine

When this small panel was painted in Vienna, around 1415 to 1420, its story was still fairly new. Catherine of Alexandria was believed to have died for her faith in the early 4th century, yet her vision, in which the Christ Child takes her as his bride, only appears in writing in the 14th century. Here the Virgin, wrapped in a deep blue mantle, holds the Child on her lap as he reaches across and grasps the martyr's palm the saint holds out to him. She is dressed like a lady at a princely court of the painter's time, in a red gown slipping off the shoulders and a cap trimmed with fur. A small golden wheel, the sign of her ordeal, rests on the bench beside her, and a long white scroll unrolls from her hand across the green brocade.