The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine

Infrared and X-ray images of this canvas show a man who is no longer there. When Van Dyck laid the composition in, between 1618 and 1620, he drew and began painting a male figure between the angel and the saint, a figure that also turns up in several of his drawings on paper. He never finished him. The sleeve of the angel's cloak was brought across and the man disappeared under it. What stayed is the ring, at the centre, which the Christ Child places on Catherine's finger, the sword and the angel's palm that point to her execution, and two friars watching from behind. In the lower left corner there is a Corinthian capital and a fallen column shaft, a play on the Latin reading of her name as ruin, since she ruined what the devil was building. The picture belonged to the Marquis of Leganés in the 17th century.