Le Mariage mystique de sainte Catherine

This is thought to be the earliest of the several paintings Correggio made of the mystic marriage of Saint Catherine, done young, probably around 1510 when he was barely into his twenties. The scene is a vision rather than an event. Catherine of Alexandria kneels to receive a wedding ring from the Christ child on the Virgin's lap, with two friars, Francis and Dominic, at either side. Within a decade or so Correggio would be covering the domes of Parma with dissolving crowds of figures rushing upward, the soft illusion that made his name. Here that is still ahead of him. He keeps the figures pressed close to us along a shallow strip of ground, the way a young painter works a composition out before he trusts himself with depth.