Le Mariage mystique de sainte Catherine

Correggio painted this young, around 1512, well before he became the artist who would cover Parma's domes with tumbling, floating figures. It shows the moment Saint Catherine is wed in a vision to the Christ Child, who leans from his mother's arms to slip a ring onto her finger. The picture went on to have a restless life. It belonged to the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua, then was bought by Charles I of England, one of the great collectors of his age. When Charles was beheaded in 1649, his pictures were sold off to settle debts and scattered across Europe. This one passed through Vienna and Amsterdam before an American donor gave it to Detroit in 1926.