St Catherine of Siena with the Crucifix and the Lily

The convent where Plautilla Nelli spent her life in Florence was dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena, so in painting the saint she was painting her own house's patron. Nelli had taken vows as a Dominican nun and taught herself to paint, with no workshop and no master to apprentice under, at a time when that door was shut to women. She is remembered as the earliest woman painter of Florence whose work survives. Here Catherine holds the crucifix she was said to contemplate for hours, and the lily that stands for her purity, the plain devotional signs a sister of the same order would have known by heart. Nelli ran a busy painting workshop of nuns inside the convent walls, and small panels like this one were made for private prayer rather than public display.