St Barbara

Saint Barbara is known by her tower. In her legend, her father locked her in it after she became a Christian, and here it rises beside her. She wears bright clothes worked with gold embroidery and jewels, and in her hand is an ostrich feather, which the Christ Child was said to have given her in a vision.

This panel and its companion, Saint Catherine, have travelled a long way. Before 1783 they belonged to the Marquess of Buckingham at Stowe in England. Around 1914 they were bought by Walter von Pannwitz, a Berlin collector, and his widow later took them to her house at Heemstede, near Haarlem. In October 1940 she sold both panels to Hermann Göring through his agent Walter Andreas Hofer. After the war they came under the care of the Dutch state, which lent them to the Mauritshuis in 1948 and transferred them to the museum in 1960.