Matrimonio mistico di santa Caterina d'Alessandria con san Sebastiano

Correggio made this for a house, not a church. It was painted around 1526 for a doctor in Modena, a scholar in the local humanist circle, to hold in his own hands as a private devotion. So everything is close and quiet. The Christ child, on his mother's lap, leans over to slip a wedding ring onto the finger of Saint Catherine, the moment of her mystic marriage to him, while Saint Sebastian watches from the side. Correggio softens every edge with the smoky blending he was famous for around Parma, so the figures seem lit from within. Look past them into the landscape and both saints' deaths are already waiting in miniature, Catherine kneeling at the block and Sebastian bound for the arrows. A century later a French cardinal owned it, and Louis XIV bought it for his own collection.