Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Bartholomaus Zeitblom ran the busiest painting workshop in Ulm around the year 1500, turning out saints for the wooden altarpieces that filled south German churches. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was a favorite of that world, a legendary princess said to have been sentenced to die on a spiked wheel and then beheaded, which is why painters gave her a wheel and a sword to hold. A panel like this once formed one wing of a larger folding altar. What makes its survival worth noting is what happened next in Ulm. In 1531 the city went over to the Reformation and cleared its churches of images, so a great many painted saints from Zeitblom's generation were taken down, sold, or destroyed. This Catherine is one that came through.