Saint Dorothy

Dorothy was, by tradition, a young Christian put to death at Caesarea during the persecutions of the early 4th century. On the way to her execution a court official named Theophilus mocked her, asking her to send him fruit and flowers from the garden of paradise she kept promising. The story says a child appeared with a basket of three roses and three apples, in the dead of winter. That basket is why she is nearly always shown, as she is here, holding roses and fruit. This small panel is the work of an unknown Basel master and is recorded in the museum from the old Faesch collection, one of the private cabinets the city absorbed. Little else about it is documented, including a firm date for when it was painted.